Late Bloomer
by iwvs
Summary: Sixteen years since he'd talked to All Might. Sixteen years since he'd flunked the UA entrance exam, the only quirkless applicant. And thirteen years since All Might had been murdered, live on television.
1. Chapter 1

It was That day again. The anniversary. Midoriya walked the three hundred feet from the convenience store back to his apartment, white plastic bag swinging in his hand. Kacchan had made a sponsorship deal with a cereal brand, and he'd bought a box of it, Katsuki's scowling face plastered on the front. They would probably taste horrible, but it was a way of supporting his friend. If only a little. What else could an office worker do?

He'd always managed to avoid being alone before. Each one of the twelve times it had come round, he'd been with his mother, or his friends, or his wife. Fumiko had left in the spring, but there was still a pair of her shoes in the rack by the door. Midoriya had thought about sending them to her in the mail, but something in him was reluctant to- it felt too much like giving in on the relationship. Ironic, seeing as it had been his refusal to just give up that had driven them apart in the first place.

Once he was inside the black screen of the TV stared at him like an accusatory eye. Midoriya dropped his bag of meat buns and Dynam-O's by the side of the couch and sat down. The service would be starting soon, and much as he dreaded it, he felt compelled to watch. He watched everything All Might. To do otherwise would be a sort of betrayal.

This year, Lemillion was leading the memorial service. He looked older than he did on the posters, the skin around his cheerful eyes lined despite the best efforts of the TV makeup department. Midoriya could make out the backs of two prominent sidekicks in the front row- Dave Shields and Sir Nighteye. Gran Torino wasn't there this year, but he'd been in and out of hospital, so that was hardly surprising. Kacchan never turned up to this sort of thing, but Kacchan's partner Red Riot was there in the third row, along with Endeavour's son, Permafrost.

Lemillion took to the podium, overshadowed by the statue of All Might behind him. He cleared his throat, looking at the camera. "He would have wanted us to be hopeful."

Hopeful? Midoriya scoffed, finger hovering over the power button on the remote. It had been twenty six years since the doctor had declared him quirkless. Sixteen years since he'd talked to All Might. Sixteen years since he'd flunked the UA entrance exam, the only quirkless applicant. And thirteen years since All Might had been murdered, live on television. He felt something, that was true- something urging him on through the pain and the darkness- but hope was not the word Midoriya would have chosen for it.

Desperation was closer to it.

With a sigh, Midoriya put down the remote, letting Lemillion's speech wash over him. The buns from the store smelled too oily suddenly, and he didn't feel like eating.

With Fumiko gone, Midoriya had a little more room for his own things. He'd taken the stuff from his childhood bedroom out of storage, put a few of the posters up. And a few of the action figurines, too.

"Here you go." Midoriya put the meat buns in front of the All Might figure on the side.

The doll grinned at him fearlessly, and on a whim, Midoriya pulled the string on the back.

"Never fear," the doll ground out. "For I am here!"

"You're not, though," said Midoriya, shaking his head. "You're dead."

"I am here," the doll repeated, the speaker tinny. The battery inside must have been running low.

Midoriya sighed, and pulled off his shirt, taking a stance in front of the heavy bag that hung from the ceiling behind the couch. If Fumiko was still living here, he'd have put it away until he wanted it, but now that he was living by himself he didn't see the point. He circled it, jabbing at it as Lemillion kept talking. Talking about justice, about how he wanted happiness for every citizen. To Midoriya, it grated. He hit the bag a little harder. It felt like Lemillion was skirting around the topic. He wasn't talking about the fear that people felt, the fear they still felt, even now. All Might had died gruesomely on live television, and then Endeavour a year and a half after that. Lemillion had held the number one spot for a while, but people were waiting for him to die, too. Midoriya clenched his jaw, hitting the bag full power. The Symbol of Peace was gone. Why woudn't they say it? Now Dave Shields was up on the stage, telling a story about All Might, his mouth smiling but his eyes creased at the corners. Midoriya screamed as he punched the bag.

_Can even someone without a quirk be like you?_

It wasn't just the anniversary. The anniversary was when he felt it most keenly, but he felt All Might's absence every day. He saw it in people's faces in the streets, where they hurried home rather than enjoy the evenings. He punched. Again, and again, until his arms were like lead. Until the TV program cut to the presenters in the studio, the woman presenter wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. Until he slumped forward, knuckles bleeding, chest heaving, hugging the bag to keep himself upright. It wasn't enough. Nothing he had ever done had been enough.

His failure to get into UA had been the first strike. Then he'd failed to get into any hero course at all. He'd cried for weeks, and then resolved himself to working harder. He'd trained his body and tried for late admission, all three years. He'd failed. And All Might had died. It was stupid, but his brain had sort of tied those things together, as if somehow as a hero course student he could have saved him. Saved everyone. He'd wanted to shut the door to his room and never leave, stay staring at a picture of All Might forever, as if the Nomu had never happened. But his mother had nudged open his door, and stroked his hair as he cried.

She had convinced him to go to university, and he'd done it, even though the same old dream was burning in his chest. He'd taken a job in a hero agency as a clerk, as if proximity to the heroes would somehow rub off on him, make him good enough. It hadn't. He was an office worker, the best a quirkless man could aspire to be.

Fumiko had wanted a family with him, she'd wanted him to take his day job more seriously, to pursue promotions like the rest of the people in his office. But that would have meant giving up on his dream. The dream.

_It's not bad to dream. But you must also consider what is realistic, young man._

Midoriya grabbed a towel from the bathroom, wiping down his face. His one meeting with All Might had nearly broken him, but he had come out of it with his resolve intact. He'd never stopped training, never stopped dreaming.

He ran a finger over the long scar on his chest. Last year, he'd stepped in to stop a mugging. He'd ended up in hospital with severe blood loss and concussion. Before that it had been a drug dealer, before that a home intruder. Every time he stepped in he got hurt, got reprimanded, made Fumiko upset. His ribs had been broken several times, and his arms, but it did nothing to deter him. He didn't have a choice. His drab office job filled the hours, and he was pretty sure he'd loved Fumiko, but it was like all of his life was in black and white, the only technicolor moments the ones where he could believe he was a hero, if only for a moment.

Midoriya stepped back into the main room of his apartment, towelling his green hair. The TV was still on, illuminating the room.

"And in these dark times," the woman presenter was saying. "We would do well to remember the words of our Symbol of Peace."

To Midoriya's surprise, All Might's face appeared on the screen, smiling into the camera. His throat felt tight, and he reminded himself it was archive footage.

"Remember why you clench your fists," said All Might, and Midoriya felt as if All Might was alive behind the screen, talking to him, and not a man who had been dead thirteen years. "Remember why you started down this path, and let that memory carry you beyond your limit."


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello, Can't Stop Sparkling Hero Agency. How can I help you?"

Midoriya felt his face contort into a fake smile as he forced out his customer service voice. Technically speaking, he was in merchandising, not customer support, but the latest line of Can't Stop Sparkling: Forever Sparkle dolls had a serious defect and they'd called in pretty much everyone to man the phones. He burbled through the required script, barely listening.

That morning there had been a thin envelope under his door. He'd opened it, far enough to read the heading on the form inside- _divorce by mutual consent._ And something inside him had broken a little. He'd put the envelope on the side, form still inside, and carried on with his morning routine. He'd ironed his shirt, shaved his face and run his fingers through his hair before he walked out to catch the 7am commuter train to the agency in Jakku.

"Midoriya." His boss, Ms Yamagawa, a short woman in her mid forties who reminded him far too much of his mother, waved a hand in front of his face. "Midoriya!"

"Huh?" Midoriya blinked.

"You're zoning out again. Go take a break."

"S-sorry." Midoriya mumbled, sliding off his headset. Ms Yamagawa took his place with a scowl and continued his conversation with the customer.

The hallways of the agency were quiet with the department so busy on the phones, and Midoriya headed for the nearest bathroom to splash some water over his face, and it was blessedly empty. His face looked old, crows feet around his eyes. His body ached, and his knuckles stung where he had broken the skin. Since when had he been old? He pulled an All Might face on a whim.

"Young Midoriya," he murmured, in his best impression of the hero's voice. "You can get through this, Young Midoriya."

It was no use. The voice wasn't quite right, and the face was clearly his own. Midoriya gave a sigh, and splashed a little more water onto his face. The least he could do was stay awake through the work day, for Ms Yamagawa's sake.

Midoriya stepped out of the bathroom, right into a meeting of the Agency's sidekicks. There were three of them in total, all light or refraction themed in keeping with the Shining Hero's own powers- Discoball, Footlights and Jazzler.

"We have a guest. And Can't Stop Sparking's not back yet. You!" Discoball pointed a finger at Midoriya. "Fetch them some tea!"

"Me?" Midoriya froze, panicked.

"Yes, you." Discoball scrunched her mirror-studded face at him, each of the facets showing Midoriya's startled face. "I don't see anyone else standing there."

Midoriya scrambled to attention. "Yes ma'am!"

The decor in the Can't Stop Sparkling Hero Agency staff kitchen left a lot to be desired. There was a picture of the Shining Hero himself over the sink, and some enterprising person had plastered fragments of a mirror over the water heater. There were glitter particles ground into the lino, but that was more a hazard of working in the Can't Stop Sparkling hero agency than any particular design choice.

Midoriya fetched the tea from the cupboard, and set the water heater running. Making tea wasn't hard at least- a step up from explaining to customers why their new Can't Stop Sparkling doll screamed constantly instead of talking.

He went to lift the tray to bring it to the meeting room, but someone caught his wrist.

"Your knuckles are bleeding."

Midoriya twisted, looking up to see the man who had grabbed him. He was unmistakable- tall and thin, with grey streaks in his yellow and black hair. Most striking was his stern expression- the man who had been All Might's sidekick. Midoriya swallowed, and he might have saluted if the man hadn't been holding his wrist. "Sir Nighteye!"

"Please, I'm retired. I'm just here as a consultant. You should call me Sasaki."

"Mr Sasaki," said Midoriya, looking up at the man. His hero stats listed him as six foot seven, but he looked shorter than that, perhaps because he stopped.

Nighteye's yellow eyes stared intently at Midoriya from behind the narrow glasses he wore. "Let me… fix your hands for you."

Before Midoriya could object, Nighteye was on one knee, reaching into his jacket for something. A small case with a pharmacy symbol on the side.

"You have a first aid kit on you-" Midoriya breathed. "Do you carry it all the time?"

Nighteye looked at him sharply, taking cotton balls and disinfectant from the case. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"

Midoriya held still as Nighteye cleaned and bandaged the wounds on his hands. His movements were incredibly efficient, as if he was a trained medic- he probably was. He didn't even throw the cotton he'd used to clean Midoriya's knuckles into the regular trash, just packed it back into a compartment in his kit, presumably to dispose of it properly as medical waste. He really was conscientious.

"I saw you," said Midoriya. "At the ceremony yesterday."

"You were there?" asked Nighteye, and Midoriya kicked himself mentally.

"No. I watched- on the television." Midoriya felt embarrassment rise from his gut. Of course Nighteye wouldn't want to talk about the memorial. All Might had been his ally, and his close friend.

"There." Nighteye finished up the bandages and got to his feet, towering above Midoriya again. "All done."

"Thank you, Sir." Midoriya flushed, bowing deeply. "I mean, Mr Sasaki."

"Sasaki!" Yuga Aoyama, the Shining Hero Can't Stop Sparkling, rounded the corner into the kitchen area. "I hope my staff aren't bothering you!" He was a huge man, not as tall as Nighteye but heavy set, his love for rich food such as cheese having caught up with him in his mid twenties, and his torso-protecting armour doubled as a girdle. Midoriya was surprised to see the trim figure of Permafrost trailing behind Aoyama, in full hero gear and icy half face mask.

Nighteye grinned, showing too many teeth. "To the contrary. Your interns are very interesting." Interesting? Midoriya swallowed. If he remembered correctly, Sir Nighteye's quirk was Foresight, the ability to look into someone's future when he touched them. Had Sir Nighteye just used his quirk on him? And if so, what had he seen?

"He's not an intern." Aoyama scowled at Midoriya. "He's no-one. He doesn't even have a quirk. He's in _Marketing_."

"Merchandising," said Midoriya, staring at the floor.

He felt two intense gazes on him in that moment. Nighteye, his gaze one of interest from behind his glasses, and Permafrost, whose mismatched eyes were inscrutable.

"Is that so," said Nighteye, taking one of the cups of tea Midoriya had made, and handing another to Permafrost. "We should get back to the meeting room. The others will be waiting for us."

Aoyama shook his head, turning to Midoriya once Nighteye and Permafrost were out of the kitchen. His gaze fell to Midoriya's bandaged hands, and his lips pursed in disapproval. "Wait in my office," he said.

Being fired wasn't really a surprise. He'd been on thin ice for a while, with the time he'd spent in hospital, and the time a video of him getting beaten up had made it onto the internet. Coming in with injuries on his hands had been the last straw. Midoriya had always imagined himself begging to keep the job, throwing himself on Aoyama's greaves, but he found he couldn't muster the energy for it. Not with the anniversary, and the divorce, and the rest of the world pressing down around his ears. He felt heavy, as if he would sink, and Aoyama's words washed over him like white noise from a radio. They handed him a cardboard box with the stuff from his desk as a couple of the sidekicks escorted him out. Inside was a picture of him and Fumiko from their honeymoon, and a faulty Can't Stop Sparkling doll. He carried it numbly through the lobby and dumped it in the trash outside.

**A/N- thank you so much everyone who has commented and followed so far. I hope I surprise you guys, and in a good way.**


	3. Chapter 3

Midoriya walked to the station in the daylight, his suit jacket slung over one shoulder. It was deserted save for tourists and a few housewives with small children, the rush hour long over. He supposed he should head back to his cheap apartment in Akuto, but what was the point in that? There was no-one waiting for him there, just his TV and his punching bag. He bought a ticket for the train going in the opposite direction- towards Kamino Ward and the All Might memorial.

He stared out of the window most of the way there, too listless to check his phone. Lots of Kamino had been rebuilt in the years since All Might's death, but there were still remnants of the destruction visible from the train. Roads that had once followed a straightforward grid pattern had sharp corners where the earth had shattered, making fault lines through them. The odd building from before the fight still stood, too, drab and decrepit amongst the shining steel and glass of the reconstruction. Above all of that was the tower.

The tower had been Endeavour's pet project. He'd given a press conference when it had opened, and talked about how it would shed the light of hope, and the people of the devastated ward would see it above them, looking over them. It was half a kilometre high, and at night they lit up the tip.

Where All Might had died they had planted a garden. A few dozen cherry trees were on the cusp of maturity, their branches bare and frosty in the winter air. The flowerbeds were bare, the dark earth covered with a thin frost. Midoriya walked through, fingers brushing the simple plaque at the centre of the garden. Someone, maybe a tourist, had left a bouquet of red flowers. He'd never visited the site before, but today that seemed irrational. He seemed unable to feel anything. No grief, no sadness, just white static. It was like he was barely there at all. The base of the tower was unattended, just a box with a suggested donation. Midoriya opened his wallet and put some money in the box before he headed in.

Usually when buildings were this tall, they were used as offices, but the memorial tower was little more than an empty shell, concrete and steel construction visible from the stairwell. Midoriya started climbing the stairs, barely registering the architecture. Every few metres there was a small window, to let in light, and more than once he noticed a strange distortion of the light pass over it.

The ascent was taking too long. Midoriya picked up his pace, his legs moving more rapidly. He'd made sure to stay in good shape, with a mix of sprint-type and long distance running. A few stairs wouldn't kill him. The windows flashed past as he sped up, hitting an easy jog first, and then a full-on run. He breathed hard, taking two stairs at a time until finally he reached the summit, holding his knees to catch his breath.

The top of the tower was a viewing platform, a walkway inside the tower that looked out onto the city on every side through open archways. The lamp, which Endeavour had named the Light of Hope, took up the centre of that level, but it was dormant.

Midoriya frowned. He wasn't sure why exactly, but despite the platform being deserted, he got the sense that someone else was there. Midoriya folded his arms over his chest, leaning against the nearest archway, and waited.

Permafrost rose from the outside of the tower on a pillar of ice. He wasn't wearing his hero gear anymore, and had opted for sportswear instead, the soft grey hood of his jacket covering his two-tone hair and casting the scar on the left side of his face in shadow.

"Permafrost?"

"I'm not in uniform, so it's Todoroki. If you don't mind." Todoroki stepped from the ice pillar onto the viewing platform, dismissing his quirk's manifestation behind him with a twitch of his hand.

"You followed me here."

"I saw you leave the agency." Todoroki paused, and it seemed like he was trying to find the right words. "I heard what happened. You seemed upset."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to trouble you." Midoriya stared down at the drop- the bare garden half a kilometre below, his stomach sinking. Todoroki had thought he was about to kill himself. "I'm not- you know. I just need to think. About things."

"It's not trouble," said Todoroki. "I'm a hero, so I save people- it's in the job description."

"Why did you follow me yourself? You could have sent someone." Someone less important than Permafrost.

"You might not remember this," said Todoroki, quietly. "But I was in the same cohort as you. For the UA entrance exam."

Midoriya blinked. Of course he remembered Todoroki, coasting to the finish line in his white suit. But he'd never considered that Todoroki might remember him. "Can't Stop Sparkling didn't."

"Aoyama's an idiot," said Todoroki, bluntly. "You were the only kid with no quirk. And everyone said you couldn't do it. But you did it anyway."

"I failed."

Todoroki shrugged. "Does it matter? I wish I was half that brave."

Midoriya looked up at Todoroki, his throat feeling suddenly tight. "You're a _hero_," he said. "Permafrost. The Ice Prince."

"Is that what they're calling me now?" Todoroki tilted his head, quizzical. "Heh, I hadn't heard that one."

Midoriya flushed. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay." Todoroki gave a small smile. "I just don't really follow the media, that's all."

"But-" Midoriya closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts. "You save people. You risk your life, every day. How can you say I'm braver than you? I'm- I'm _nothing_." He felt the tears come, and turned his face away, towards Kamino Ward and the memorial garden. "I'm not even an office worker anymore."

Todoroki was quiet, and Midoriya wondered for a moment if he had conjured himself an ice slide and made an exit from the conversation. "I used to think like that," he said, at last. His eyes fixed momentarily to the giant, dormant lamp. "I think my father did, too. That bravery is defined only by risking your life. But really, it's more complicated than that. Going against what people want for you is brave. Risking failure is brave. Sometimes risking your life is the least brave thing you can do."

Midoriya sniffed, pinching off the tears that were streaming down his face with his fingers. "You're a good guy," he managed to say.

Todoroki nodded calmly, his expression shifting to annoyance as something in his pocket vibrated. He pulled out a device, and made an annoyed noise as he pressed a button.

"Hero stuff?" Midoriya asked.

"Yeah." Todoroki gave another nod. "Look, I know we don't really know each other at all, but here-" He dug around in his pocket and fished out a business card. It was white, with a holographic ice crystal emblazoned on the back. "This has my number on it. If you need to talk to someone-"

Midoriya took the card, a nameless emotion welling in his chest. "Thank you, Perma- I mean, Todoroki."

Todoroki nodded. "I need to go now. Do you want a slide?" He gestured down, to the memorial gardens.

"No, thank you." Midoriya shook his head, the card still clutched in his hand. "I'll take the stairs."

Todoroki nodded wordlessly, and was gone.

Midoriya rubbed his thumbs across Todoroki's card as he walked down the hundred flights of stairs, heart beating like a trapped bird in his chest. Todoroki had been so kind. It went against a lot of what the media printed about him. That he was stoic, or uncaring. Maybe the man just hated journalists. Midoriya slowed as he neared the base of the stairwell and heard voices.

"It's the same every damn time. No matter what. I take you here, I take you there. It's never good enough." There was a couple in the garden, a man and a woman, and they were arguing. The man was heavyset, a little over six foot and wearing a patterned shirt. The woman was shorter, closer to average japanese height, and looked younger than the guy.

The man's voice was raised, and Midoriya felt a familiar prickle down the back of his neck as he took a position out of sight behind one of the cherry trees. He looked up, hoping to spot Todoroki in the sky nearby, but the Ice Prince was nowhere to be found.

"Bitch!" There was the sound of a slap, and the woman turned away covering her face. Midoriya swallowed. He'd been prepared to let them get on with their argument, but he couldn't stand by and watch the woman get hit.

"Hey." Midoriya emerged from behind the cherry trees, raising his hands peaceably. "Is everything okay here?"

"Don't interfere in what's none of your business," the man growled, and Midoriya took in the scene, the woman's frightened expression. Her face wasn't showing a bruise yet, but her skin was marked and red where her boyfriend had hit her.

Midoriya stepped towards them, his hands still raised. If he talked to them, he might be able to get their identities, maybe talk to the woman alone and convince her to seek help for her situation. "I just don't want to see anyone getting upset," he said, slowly.

"I said," said the man, raising his hand as he activated his quirk and grew a shard of metal from his arm. "Don't interfere."

Midoriya's feet seemed to move on their own as he stepped between the man and his girlfriend. "Please-" he said.

The man's expression hardened, and he sliced down at Midoriya with the blade.

Midoriya might have been quirkless, but that didn't mean defenseless. He raised his arms against the blade, blocking with the outside of his arm with one side and grabbing for a restraint hold with the other. The man grinned, and Midoriya realised his mistake as a second blade erupted from the man's skin and into the palm of his hand. Midoriya screamed, pain erupting white onto his consciousness, barely avoiding the follow-up slash as he staggered back.

"What do you think you are?" the man taunted. "Some kind of hero?"

"No-" Midoriya swayed, still woozy from the pain, and ripped a section from his shirt to staunch the bleeding from his hand. The man was bigger than him, but less skilled. There were a dozen openings Midoriya would have taken, if not for the man's ability to erupt into knives. "I'm just trying to do the right thing."

Midoriya turned to the woman, who had frozen on the spot, her hands at her mouth. "Run!" he shouted. "Get help! I'll slow him down!"

"Like hell you will!" the man growled, turning after the woman, who had listened to Midoriya and started to run.

Midoriya flung himself after him, tackling him to the floor, and they rolled on the frozen ground, Midoriya struck for the man's head, hoping to incapacitate him, but the man twisted in his grasp.

"You don't learn, do you?" he grated, and Midoriya gasped as he felt pain in his legs. Blades from the man's legs jutted through the meat of Midoriya's thighs, like they were his own quirk. The man lunged for him with an arm blade again, and Midoriya twisted away, but his impaled legs were pinning him, limiting his motion. He watched in horror as the man's bladed arm slipped between his defenses, stabbing him in the chest

The man scrambled out from beneath Midoriya, swearing, and Midoriya tasted blood in his mouth. He could see blood just about everywhere, actually, his arterial spray hitting the All Might plaque. He tried to speak, but blood poured from his mouth.

So this was it? This was how he died? At least it was trying to save someone. With his dying thoughts he hoped the woman would be okay, that she would find a policeman. The blackness enveloped him, each of his senses snuffing out, until he stood in all darkness and silence and cold.

And then there was the fire. A red fire, a gold fire, burning up from his feet, to his core, to his head. It erased the blackness, brought each of his senses back to him with excruciating acuity. His own heartbeat was thunderous, the sunlight burning his retina.

He breathed in. Fire. Fire in his lungs. Fire danced over his skin, which glowed from within like coals. Midoriya screamed fire.

"The fuck?" His killer stared at him, eyes wide as he stumbled backwards. "Fuck!"

Midoriya stood in the All Might memorial garden, naked in a circle of ash. Reborn.

**A/N- thank you everyone for your support and comments! You're all wonderful! With regards to story length, we're at point 4/14 on my outline currently, at about 5k words, so I expect this to be about novella length, 20-30k total, to tell the story I want to tell. **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N- thank you to everyone who has read, followed or reviewed this story so far, you mean the world to me. To Heracelio: you seem like a clever person, I'm sure you'll work out what's up ;). To Fredgie: I don't think I'm a good enough writer to get away with giving a protagonist the phoenix force, it's too OP.**

* * *

"Izuku Midoriya. Congratulations on finally manifesting your quirk." Sir Nighteye's tone was chipper as he walked into the garden, sunlight glinting from his glasses. He hadn't ever really worn a costume like most pro-heroes, so his sillhouette was the same even in retirement.

How long had Nighteye been watching? And why had he come? Midoriya squinted up at the tall man, his slender frame blocking the sun.

"Blanket?" Nighteye held out what looked like a silver reflective blanket, like the ones used for people in shock.

Numbly, Midoriya accepted. The flames had faded, but his skin still felt as if it was burning, his tongue thick in his mouth. "The- the man." he managed.

Nighteye seemed to understand. "I called the police in to arrest the man who stabbed you. And asked them to refer the woman to a domestic violence service. Oh-" he held out a bottle of water. "And this."

Of course Sir Nighteye would be perfectly prepared. He was the Foresight Hero, after all. Or he had been. Why had he retired? Midoriya took the water and drank, the cold liquid heavenly on his parched tongue. "I'm not cold," he said, once he could speak again.

"Yes, but I don't want you facing a public indecency charge," said Nighteye, casting an eye over Midoriya. "The police will be here soon."

Blushing, Midoriya covered his shame, and Nighteye grinned to himself.

"You saw this. You saw my death." Midoriya stared at Nighteye. "You let that man kill me."

"I did," said Nighteye, turning to examine the plaque. After a second or so, he took a container from his pocket and held it under the edge of the plaque, where Midoriya's blood was still dripping. "Would you rather I hadn't?"

"It hurt! I died!"

"First manifestations of quirks can be traumatic, believe me, I know," said Nighteye, screwing a cap onto the container and putting it in his briefcase. "But wouldn't you rather have one?"

"You could have told me what you saw!" Midoriya hugged the reflective blanket around himself.

"That never helps with this sort of thing," said Nighteye, with a shake of his head. "Any change had the potential to make the situation worse, and besides-" he pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. "No-one was harmed."

Midoriya found he strongly disagreed with whatever Nighteye's definition of "harmed" was, but his feeling was quickly overtaken by gratitude as sirens wailed nearby and the police arrived. Nighteye's demeanour shifted, and he was suddenly cold, stiff and official as he put a protective hand on Midoriya's bare shoulder and turned to the officers. The police seemed almost sheepish as Nighteye talked to them.

"This man is registered Quirkless. He's never been to quirk counselling, and there are no records of him having used a Quirk at any point. Besides which, if you watch the security footage, you will clearly see that he was acting in self defense."

The officer frowned. "That might be so, but we would still like to take this man in for questioning. And to make a statement."

"I will come with him, then," said Nighteye, and none of the police seemed to object. The benefit of being a pro- or a former pro- in Nighteye's case.

"My quirk-" said Midoriya, once they were in the back of the police car together. He swallowed, collecting his memories of the last few minutes. The fight. He'd been sure he was going to die. He'd felt himself slipping away, and then burning. "What is my quirk, exactly?"

Nighteye tilted his head. "I have my suspicions," he said. "But right now I only know as much as you." He looked away, out the window as rebuilt Kamino sped past. The new shopping district was busy with people on their lunch break. "I want to see the security footage, to be sure."

"To be sure of what?"

"That you really came back from the dead," said Nighteye.

The police interviews and statements took hours, sat in uncomfortable chairs in a stale-smelling waiting room. Crime in the city was higher than ever, and an assault with apparently zero casualties seemed to be a low priority for the force. Nighteye, who many of the police seemed to recognise, left at one point to get Midoriya some clothes, returning with underwear, slacks and a t-shirt in a branded shopping bag, the labels still in them. Underneath them in the bag was a pair of new trainers, still in the box. Midoriya thought at first that Nighteye had made a mistake and bought a size too large, but when he put them on they fit perfectly, and he was filled once more with respect for the former pro's observational skills. After a little pressing on the part of Nighteye, the police also returned to him the jacket he'd dropped when he'd tackled the man, complete with his phone and wallet.

The police seemed reluctant to show them the footage of the fight, and Midoriya heard Nighteye in a growled discussion with the detective on their case as someone took Midoriya aside for a physical examination. He caught the words superior and consultant hissed between the two men. After prodding him a few times and taking his blood pressure, the medic pronounced him healthy and Nighteye was waiting for him with an SD card between his fingers.

"You want to see?" Nighteye asked.

Mutely, Midoriya nodded, and followed the retired pro through the station into the police AV room.

A few seconds of technical fiddling and the television screen flickered to life. Midoriya's throat felt tight as he saw the scene. Camera one was mounted on the side of the tower, camera two on the trunk of one of the cherry trees. Nighteye flicked through the frames, impatient, and Midoriya caught a glimpse of Todoroki's ice pillar, distorting the view on camera one before it flickered away. A pair of Liberation evangelists walked in lockstep through the garden on their way to somewhere else, and the blade quirk man and his girlfriend entered the garden, the girl holding the man's arm.

Nighteye slowed the footage down to normal speed for the fight, and Midoriya watched it, wincing in sympathy with his past self as he took each hit. The Midoriya in the video looked like a wreck, gaping wounds in both his legs, nasty gashes on his forearm, and a hole in his chest that gushed blood, his assailant stumbling away.

That was where he had died. Midoriya's breath caught in his throat as he saw what happened afterwards. The man scrambled away from him as his body caught fire. The flame quickened and surged, soon so bright that it overexposed the sensors on each of the cameras, appearing as a white mark on the screen, the corona tinged red-orange. A pillar of flame.

"There-" said Midoriya, and Nighteye paused. Midoriya stared at the image of himself, his eyes glowing so brightly that the camera saw them as white blocks on his face. He was standing where his body had been lying, and the last of the fire rose from his shoulders in two tall streams. The stab wounds on his legs and chest were gone.

"I healed," he said, his brain running too fast to put one thought in front of another. He had a quirk. An actual quirk. "Can you play it again?"

"From your death?"

"From the fire." Midoriya paused, frowning. "Why are you so willing to believe I really died?"

Nighteye didn't look at him, but smiled to himself as he set the footage back to the start of the fire, from the second camera this time. "I had a look at your records after our meeting this morning. If merely being beaten unconscious could trigger your quirk, _you_ would know about it by now. You're an interesting man, Izuku Midoriya."

"Oh." Midoriya blushed. "Thanks, Sir Nighteye."

"Sasaki," Nighteye corrected him, though not sharply. He clicked his tongue against his teeth as the footage played through, the fire too bright to see Midoriya's body after it fell. "I'm pretty sure your quirk is unique," he said, as the flames on the screen died to reveal Midoriya's muscled back. "I've heard of healing quirks before, but I've never seen someone come back from the dead. What will you call it?"

Midoriya blinked, his brain brought momentarily out of its loop of _I have a quirk_. "I get to name it?"

"You're the first known wielder, and you're not a minor," said Nighteye. "I don't see why not. You should name it now, before the media does it for you."

Midoriya mused on it. Rebirth seemed trite. Resurrection had religious overtones somehow. He shook his head. "Let them," he said, with a small shrug. "I've always been terrible at naming things."

Nighteye left him with a promise to contact him when he knew more, and Midoriya headed home. On the train back to Akuto he scanned his phone for any news of the events in the memorial garden, but the news was full of Permafrost stopping an emitter type villain from attacking a government building in Rishimaze, and the liberation army taking credit for the attack. Midoriya took a deep breath and put the phone back in his pocket. It seemed like every week now there was something like that on the news. He wondered if Todoroki had managed to save everyone.

He had a quirk. He had a quirk. His childhood doctor had been wrong, and all that it had taken was Midoriya dying to prove it. He'd died. And he was okay. He'd nearly been arrested. But that had turned out fine. He'd lost his job. But he was going to be okay. With a knot in his stomach, Midoriya remebered the envelope that he'd abandoned on the side that morning, and the thin form inside it. Midoriya hung from the handhold on the rush-hour train as the day's events caught up with him, wishing that he'd claimed a seat for himself. He didn't even know how his quirk worked. Would he only come back from violent death? What if he starved? Or froze? Or died of old age? Was it just a one-time thing? Had he already used it up? It wasn't as if he could test it.

Finally, he stumbled out onto the platform at Akuto, the night air cold after the press of bodies on the train. He needed to talk to someone. Todoroki had offered to talk if he needed it, but the man was a pro hero. He'd have better things to do than talk to some lame guy about his late quirk manifestation.

He looked at his mom's entry in his phone's address book. It would be out of service by now, of course it would be, but he hadn't deleted it. Even if he did, he suspected the number would stay etched onto his heart.

And then there was Fumiko. His wife, still his wife, until he signed the forms she'd sent and mailed them back to the court. Midoriya didn't know for sure, but probably last thing she'd want was to hear him talk about his dreams again.

With a sigh, Midoriya punched in the number Todoroki had given him. He'd send a message, rather than calling. That way Todoroki wouldn't be put on the spot.

_Hey. It's Midoriya. From the Sparkling Agency. And the tower earlier._

Midoriya agonized over the message before hitting send, and started the walk from the station to his apartment. He was surprised when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

_oh hey_

Midoriya stared at the reply. A second line of text joined it.

_what's up_

Midoriya stopped dead, holding the phone up to his face. He needed to reply quickly, or Todoroki would worry.

_It's nothing. It's just I had a really crazy day, and I was wondering if your offer was still good? To talk, I mean._

Midoriya deleted the word _crazy_ and replaced it with _eventful_ several times before finally settling on crazy. _Crazy_ felt about right.

Todoroki's reply was pretty much instant.

_sure_

_Did you want to meet up somewhere? A bar? _Midoriya shot back.

There was a pause of several minutes, and Midoriya was worried he'd offended Todoroki somehow. He started writing an apology when Todoroki's reply appeared.

_can't leave the house right now _

_can you come to me?_

Midoriya sent an affirmative and plugged in the address Todoroki sent him as a reply. It was in an old part of the city, the sort of neighbourhood that was full of traditional houses rather than apartments or high-rises, and the map showed that it was huge.


	5. Chapter 5

Todoroki's house was a mansion, bigger than it had looked on the map, even. Around it were high walls, at least three metres, topped with spikes and security cameras. The reason for the walls became quickly apparent as Midoriya approached. There was a crowd gathered around the gate, video reporters with cameras and mics, and some newspaper journalists too, along with three or four people who looked to be hardcore fans wearing head-to-toe Permafrost merchandise. To even get to the gate Midoriya would have to barge through the crowd. He hung back on the street, reaching for the phone in his pocket, but it buzzed before he got to it.

Todoroki's message was already on his screen.

_i see you_

_How do I get in?_

_leave it to me_

There was a crackle to the left, the sound like glass shattering as Todoroki rose from behind his compound wall on a pillar of ice.

The journalists set off at a run, with shouts of -_Permafrost! Permafrost!-_ cameras beeping as the photographers pointed their equipment at the pro-hero. The fans went with them, one of the women pulling out a sign that read _make me your ice queen _and waving it at Todoroki.

Midoriya's phone buzzed, and Todoroki's message was a single word.

_now_

His eyes still on the rabid crowd, Midoriya backed towards the gate. It didn't make a noise as it opened, the two sides sliding slowly apart. By the time the crowd noticed, Midoriya was through and the gates shut again with a soft _click_.

Midoriya stood in the quiet of the courtyard in front of Todoroki's house, the sound of the crowd outside muted by the thick walls. The place looked very traditionally Japanese, if you ignored the high-tech security systems, the path to the house flanked by sculpted black pines. Todoroki met him halfway up the path. He'd changed from sports gear into a dark blue yukata, and his left cheekbone was icy from his quirk.

"Hey." He flicked his chin up at Midoriya in recognition.

"Thank you for inviting me over, Todoroki." Midoriya gave a deep bow.

Todoroki stared at him. "Knock it off," he said.

"Knock what off?"

"The bowing." Todoroki's nostrils flared slightly, cold mist rising from them. "We're the same age. You shouldn't bow and scrape."

"Oh. Sorry-" Midoriya went to bow again, but stopped himself halfway.

Todoroki gave a short snort of laughter, and the tension between them eased as if a string had been cut. "You really did work customer service, didn't you?"

"Are they always that bad?" Midoriya gestured backward, at the gate.

"Mm-" Todoroki gave a small shrug as he led Midoriya into the entrance hallway, removing his shoes. "It's worse after big events."

Midoriya crouched to unlace his own trainers. There were several pairs of outside shoes on the rack, some of which obviously belonged to Todoroki, but there were women's shoes too, in conservative, flat styles.

"You're married?"

"Those are my mom's," said Todoroki, his voice a little flat. "You?"

"No. Well, yes, technically. Sort of."

Todoroki stared at him, his mismatched gaze intense. "How can you be _sort of_ married?"

"She sent me the divorce papers. I've not signed them yet."

Todoroki tilted his head. "You should sign them."

Midoriya chewed his lip. "But I feel like I can't give up, you know-"

"It doesn't matter what you feel," said Todoroki, interrupting him. "You shouldn't force someone to be in that kind of a relationship with you."

"I'm not forcing anyone."

"Then why haven't you signed the papers?"

"I only got them this morning."

"Oh." Todoroki scratched his chin, and had the decency to look abashed. "Then you should sign them first thing tomorrow."

Midoriya nodded. "I will."

Todoroki nodded, apparently taking his agreement at face value.

It wasn't the sort of conversation he'd ever imagined having with the pro-hero, but then again, this wasn't the kind of day Midoriya had ever imagined having. He trailed Todoroki through his house, all elegant panelled walls and tatami floors, through to the kitchen.

Considering the decor of the rest of the place, Midoriya had been half expecting traditional clay burners and iron kettles, but the kitchen made some concessions to the western style, with a breakfast bar in the middle, polished stone counters and a gas stove. Todoroki looked to be simmering some beef tendon for a winter stew, and there were radishes on the side, half-chopped.

"Oh." Midoriya looked around at the half-finished meal, the steam rising from the pot. "I'm sorry if I interrupted your cooking."

Todoroki just shrugged. "Not like I'm a chef or anything." He paused, giving Midoriya a long look. "You can help. If you want."

Midoriya nodded. "Shall I do the radishes?"

The flesh of the white radishes parted easily under the blade of the knife that Todoroki had been using, and Midoriya chopped carefully, matching the size of the segments with the pieces already cut. While he was doing that, Todoroki drained and rinsed the beef tendon, and filled the pot with water again, before he reached into one of his cupboards and pulled out a familiar looking box. The label on the side read _Quick and Easy Oden Stock_.

"You use premade store brand stock base?" Midoriya asked, before his brain could stop him.

"Told you I wasn't a chef."

"I know, I know, it's just-" Midoriya reached for words. "It's at odds with everything here- your house is so elegant. And it's so ordinary."

Todoroki tilted his head, his two tone hair falling to one side, and Midoriya wondered for a second if he'd taken offence. "I like this one. The expensive brands don't use enough salt," he said.

They finished the prep and then sat in the quiet as the stew simmered, and the simple activity and tranquil surroundings seemed to take the edge off the buzzing in Midoriya's brain. It was strange, but he was sure that if he had been eating takeout in his own apartment he would have felt like the walls were closing in on him.

"Thank you," said Midoriya.

Todoroki looked up from poking the stew. "Hm?"

"For inviting me into your home."

"You lost your job and you're getting a divorce," said Todoroki, tone deadpan. "I think you might be about the only person in the city who's had a more stressful day than me."

"Why? What happened?" Midoriya paused. He'd scrolled through the story about the attack on the way back from Kamino, but the reports had been light on details. "I mean, I saw the news. If you don't want to talk about it-"

Todoroki silenced him with a raised palm. "It's okay. If you saw it on the news then you don't need to hear it from me all over again."

"Okay." Midoriya bowed his head, focusing on the radishes. "If you wanted to talk, though."

"I'm fine," said Todoroki, an edge of anger in his voice. Midoriya heard him take a deep breath, and the room grew a couple degrees colder.

Midoriya sat at the breakfast bar as Todoroki added ingredients to the stew, and decided not to push his luck any further. It was a lot that Todoroki had invited him to his home, and even if they had taken the UA entrance exam together they were still practically strangers.

"You said you had a crazy day," said Todoroki, changing the subject.

"It's-" Midoriya hesitated, not sure how to put what happened to him in words. He pressed his forefingers together. "I don't want to bother you."

Todoroki made an annoyed grunt, then stopped stock still as there was a noise from the front of the house- a screen door sliding open. Midoriya tensed, wondering if it was intruders, one of the rabid fans from outside making their way in. Todoroki didn't seem like he was about to leap into action, so Midoriya held off too, as a white-haired woman pushed open the door.

The woman was wan, almost fragile looking as she stood in the kitchen doorway. Her hair hung past her shoulders, and her cheeks were hollow, as if she was in the midst of a long illness. Her eyes were a dull brown, matching Todoroki's left side. If Midoriya had to guess her age, he would have said about sixty.

"Mom." Todoroki looked up, his expression neutral. "You know you're not allowed in the kitchen."

"I know, Shouto. I just wanted to see you is all."

Todoroki sighed to himself, turning off the gas on the stove with a swift movement of his hand. "Where's Fuyumi?"

"She headed off already. Wanted to get home in time to put the kids to bed."

"Okay." Todoroki closed his eyes. "Midoriya, could you take my mother to the dining room for me?"

"Oh! You had a friend over?" Her grey-blue eyes lit up as she noticed Midoriya. "Shouto never has friends over. How do you two know each other?"

"He was in my year at school," said Todoroki, tersely. It wasn't untrue, technically. And, Midoriya supposed, it saved him telling her the events of earlier that day.

Midoriya scrambled down from the high stool where he had been sitting. "Nice to meet you, Mrs Todoroki."

Todoroki's mother gave Midoriya a small smile. She stood a little taller than Midoriya, but the way she held herself made her seem smaller than she was, her shoulders a little hunched. "You're such a well-mannered young man, too. I suppose I can show you to the dining room. "

"How did you get through the crowd outside?" Midoriya asked conversationally, as he sat down at the dining table.

"Oh, that's Fuyumi's doing. My daughter," Todoroki's mother clarified. "They know that if they don't get out of her way she'll run them down with the car. She broke a man's foot the other month, and Shouto gave her such a talking to."

"That's awful!" said Midoriya, eyes wide.

"What's awful?" Todoroki stood in the doorway with a tray of bowls in his hands.

"I was telling Midoriya how your sister broke a man's foot."

"Oh." Todoroki gave a sniff as he knelt beside the low table. "I wish she wouldn't do things like that."

Midoriya stayed quiet. He couldn't imagine ever driving a car over someone's foot, but then it was hard for him to imagine having a gang of people camped outside his home.

"She's just doing what she knows. She's not soft like you, Shouto."

If Todoroki was annoyed at being called soft, he didn't show it. "Here." He put three bowls down on the table. Two of them steamed, and one did not. "Mom, I cooled this one for you."

"I'm not an invalid." His mother frowned at him. "I can eat hot food."

Todoroki said nothing, just set the cooled bowl in front of his mother, and the other two in front of Midoriya and himself. The stew was salty, as Todoroki had promised, and the beef sinew was tender.

"If you went to school with Shouto, you must have a pretty good quirk," said Todoroki's mother, after she had eaten a little.

"I, ah-" Midoriya toyed with a piece of radish floating in his stew. "This is going to sound insane, but I didn't have one. Until today."

"What?" Todoroki had stopped eating, and was watching him.

Midoriya felt uneasy. His late manifestation, in more ways than one, his unique quirk, would sound wildly unlikely. But Todoroki was a pro hero. Million-to-one odds happened to him every day. He had to trust him. "There was a man in the memorial gardens. He was attacking someone, and I… stepped in. That's when my quirk manifested."

Doubt clouded Todoroki's face. The oldest anyone had ever manifested a quirk for the first time was seven or eight years old. "What is it? Your quirk?"

"I come back from the dead."

Todoroki stared at Midoriya as if he were on fire. "You come back from the dead?"

"Yes! I have video evidence! Not on me, but-" too late, Midoriya realised how far-fetched his story was becoming. "Sir Nighteye has it."

"Sir Nighteye has a video of you coming back from the dead," repeated Todoroki. There was a strange, tight expression on his face, and his gaze flicked from Midoriya to his mother, who had remained silent through the exchange.

"I'm telling the truth," said Midoriya.

Todoroki gave a meaningful look at Midoriya's empty bowl. "I think we should call it a night. Do you need me to call someone to get you home?"

* * *

It was pitch black out when Midoriya left, refusing Todoroki's offer of a taxi. He'd bothered the man enough.

The reporters were still there, though fewer of them, and a couple caught enterprising snaps of Midoriya as he left, hugging his jacket around him. The trousers Nighteye had bought him were thin material, hardly suited to a midwinter night-time stroll.

The houses and compounds in the neighbourhood were big, and set back from the street, so the street itself was dark. Midoriya took his bearings from Todoroki's gate and walked out, back towards the station, bringing the train timetables up on the screen of his phone. The light from his screen desensitised his eyes to the darkness.

Midoriya stopped dead as he stumbled into something. He looked up, and realised that the something was actually someone. Someone _large_, dressed in business attire.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" Midoriya rushed a bow. "I was looking at my phone, I didn't see you there."

The man he'd walked into looked down at him without reply, and Midoriya realised with a chill that there were two others with him, moving to the shadows at Midoriya's sides. He'd been surrounded.

Midoriya put his phone back in his pocket, and let his eyes adjust to the low light again. The man in front of him was the biggest of the three, his hair styled in spikes. The figure to his left was smaller, but made metallic noises when he shifted, and the figure to his right was less humanoid- if Midoriya had to guess he'd have said they had some kind of snake quirk. Midoriya cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said, but the three seemed to have no intention of letting him leave.

"We'll do it here," said the large man, looking down at Midoriya.

Snake quirk's voice cut in from the right. "What about the press? Permafrost's place is crawling with them."

"The divisional commander didn't say shit about avoiding press." The large man grinned, and Midoriya could make out the gleam of his teeth in the low light. "Let them watch."

Oh, this was _bad_. Midoriya took a deep breath, his heartbeat already thrumming in his ears. There were three of them, and one of him, and two of them were bigger than him. If they expected him to do anything, it was run back the way he had came.

"Excuse me," he repeated, stepping forwards.

The big guy's eyebrows quirked upwards, surprised, and he moved to grab Midoriya. Midoriya stepped in again, grabbed the guy by the back of his belt and threw him down before he started to run. Behind him, the tall man gave a roar of indignation as the other two chased him.

He felt the snake quirk user's tail come in from behind, and rolled to the side, feeling air on his back as it missed him. The tail hit the pavement with a crack, and Midoriya started running again. Something whirred in the air behind him, and he ducked instinctively. Too late, he realised that he hadn't been the target, as the lamp post in front of him crumpled sideways, blocking his path and forcing him to a stop.

He crouched, ready to jump the obstacle, but the snaked tail bore down on him again, knocking him forward and trapping his legs. Midoriya struggled, his face pressed against tarmac.

"Bigshot," said the leader. "Kill him."

"Sure thing, boss." There was a metallic clink as the third assailant moved, and Midoriya's brain raced.

Bigshot was a villain, a member of the Liberation Army. His quirk was the ability to impart force into objects that he threw. That meant that the man with the snake quirk was Sinuous, and if the large man was their boss, he was probably Handyman. His quirk was Toolbox, the ability to turn his hands into power tools.

There was a whirring noise, and Midoriya twisted in Sinuous's coils. The ball bearing Bigshot had thrown hit the ground beside his head with a _crack_, leaving a small crater. A few inches to the left, and the crater would be his head.

"You can't even finish him off like this?" Handyman's tone was mocking. "The man's quirkless, for fuck's sake."

"I can do it again," said Bigshot.

Midoriya struggled, but Sinuous was holding him more tightly now, crushing his ribs. He couldn't move. All he could do was stare as Bigshot's hand glowed with power as he charged another throw.

There was the whirring noise again. Midoriya didn't hear the crack.

Instead, there was the fire. The burning that ran through his body, and the pain that accompanied it. Red and golden. Midoriya found himself standing once again in a circle of ash.

Sinuous, who'd been holding him down, was hugging his snakelike torso and screaming, his tail a burnt ruin. Bigshot looked like he was about to be sick.

Only Handyman still stared at him with intent, his stance shifting slightly as he turned his hands into drills. "What the hell, man? I thought I told you to kill him."

"I killed him. You saw it." Bigshot reached into his pocket, pulling out another ball bearing, and Midoriya wondered groggily if he could survive another death so quickly.

"It's just a flame quirk," said Handyman. "I've dealt with his sort before."

Midoriya lowered his stance, eyes on Handyman. The villain had the advantage of size and reach, but Midoriya knew how to compensate for that kind of thing. If he closed into close combat with Handyman, Bigshot wouldn't have a clear shot on him. He leapt in, slipping through Handyman's guard, and struck upwards with his elbow, towards the man's chin.

Handyman was a competent fighter, shifting to soften the impact. Midoriya's elbow scraped the man's cheek, and there was a hissing sound, black smoke rising from the contact. Handyman backed off, his right drill hand turning back into a human hand as he held his injured cheek.

Midoriya glanced down at his elbow in surprise. He felt heat in his body from his rebirth, but he wasn't that hot, surely?

There were lights and voices coming from the end of the road, and for a second, Midoriya hoped it was heroes, or the police, but his heart sank as he spotted the cameras and the ID badges that the journalists wore. It was the crowd from outside Todoroki's house, attracted by the commotion.

"Stay back!" Midoriya called, closing on Handyman again. "These are villains! They're dangerous!"

Handyman jabbed forwards with his drill arm, forcing Midoriya back. The ground steamed where Midoriya's feet touched it, but apart from the heat, his body felt surprisingly good. He was moving well, keeping his body close enough to Handyman's that Bigshot couldn't hit him safely, and he was fast enough to avoid being hit by the drill. He couldn't hit the man, though- not when his body was this temperature- he'd risk killing him.

Handyman punched with his non-drill arm, and Midoriya blocked reflexively, the back of his arm batting away the fist, and Handyman gave a mad grin as his fist became a drill and began to rotate.

Midoriya screamed, staggering backwards, and Handyman followed, his teamwork with Bigshot forgotten. Midoriya ducked a followup blow, gritting his teeth as he glanced down at his arm. He expected to see his arm ruined, but instead it was burning, the same feeling as when he was reborn. Healing. Midoriya pulled himself up to his full height again, and there were gasps from behind him.

The press were there. Midoriya felt a spike of anxiety as the flash from a camera hit the scene. Why were they still there? Didn't they know how dangerous it was?

One of the journalists shouted, as if answering Midoriya's thoughts. "Permafrost!"

The ice moved like a wave, cascading down from above. Midoriya looked up, his heart lifting. Todoroki had arrived. Or rather, Permafrost, still dressed in his yukata and sandals. The wave of ice crashed over Handyman, freezing him as it carried him away.

"Todoroki!" Midoriya called, looking up.

"Midoriya-" Todoroki called, horrified, and too late Midoriya realised he'd left himself an open target for Bigshot.

There was a whirring sound from behind him, and Midoriya turned, too slow, as a second ball bearing hit him in the head. He was standing this time, and the momentum of it sent him staggering before he saw the flames again.

When his vision cleared, he was standing in a circle of ash again, the tarmac melted in a crater around his feet. Handyman and Bigshot were both encased in ice to the head, and Todoroki was staring at him. He was dimly aware of the crowd of journalists, too, their cameras clicking. Todoroki seemed to have made some sort of ice wall to keep them back.

"I-" said Midoriya, but his mouth felt burnt and dry.

"I guess you weren't lying about having a rough day," said Todoroki, deadpan.

Midoriya nodded, grateful.

"This was my fault." Todoroki stared at the unconscious villains, immobilised by the ice. "They're from the Liberation Army. They were after me." He looked to one side. "And I'm sorry about making you leave. I didn't listen to you. I assumed-"

"That I was crazy. I know." Midoriya grinned.

Todoroki looked at Midoriya warily. "How can you smile like that? You just died."

"Yeah, I know that," said Midoriya. "But-" he looked into Todoroki's mismatched eyes. How did he put into words the feeling in his heart right now? That, for the first time in years, he might be moving towards something rather than simply struggling to stay in the same place? That the dream that had burned inside him for so long might be more than just a dream? The feeling made his eyes sting with the force of it. "I can't give up," he said. "Not now."

"Okay," said Todoroki. He sighed, his breath condensing into white smoke. Sirens wailed in the distance. "You should come back inside." He gestured, and a bridge of ice formed over the wall of his compound.

Midoriya followed him without question, and was glad to note that he didn't just melt straight through Todoroki's ice. He was surprised to note that the ice bridge ended not at the front door, as he had expected, but at one of the windows on the upper floor.

"We're going in via the window?" he asked.

Todoroki gave him a chilly look. "You're naked and smoking. I'm not parading you past my mother."


	6. Chapter 6

Midoriya wore a blue and white striped yukata from Todoroki's wardrobe. It was a little narrow across the shoulders, but overall much better than being naked. Todoroki had dealt with the police outside, and unlike the events at the memorial garden, neither of them was carted away for questioning.

"I wasn't sure what we should do," said Todoroki. "So I called in some friends."

When Todoroki had said _friends_, Midoriya had expected maybe some sidekicks from the permafrost agency. What Todoroki had meant to say, Midoriya concluded as he watched the first guest arrive, was _people in the top ten in the hero rankings_.

For the number two ranked hero, Uravity looked more normal than Midoriya expected. She wore comfortable-looking jeans and a fuzzy pink sweater, the word _cute_ emblazoned across the chest in English. It was hard to reconcile this ordinary looking woman with the hero who just last month had lifted a falling skyscraper with her gravity control, but her round face was the same, framed by soft brown hair.

"What the hell, Shouto?" she huffed as she removed her fleece-topped boots in the entranceway. "I just got a call from Rewind Girl saying you toasted a snake guy."

"Yeah." Todoroki folded his arms as he waited for her. "That wasn't me. That was Midoriya here." He nodded at Midoriya. "You didn't see the video online yet?"

Uravity shook her head, fishing in her pocket for her phone. "I came as soon as I got your message."

"You took the blame for me?" Midoriya's eyes widened.

Todoroki nodded. "No-one cares if I hurt a villain. You'd be looking at jail time. And I do have a flame quirk, technically. They can't prove it was you."

"Until snake guy wakes up and points the finger at him," said Uravity. "Then the full force of the law comes down on both of you. What were you thinking?"

"The anti-vigilante laws should be for people like Iida's- for people like Ingenium," Todoroki corrected himself. "And for the Stain copycats. Not for people acting in self-defence."

Midoriya stared at the pro-hero. While what Todoroki said was true, covering up for something that could be classified as vigilante activity was still a big risk- something a pro could lose their license over. "Thank you," Midoriya said, meaning it.

Todoroki's jaw twitched with irritation. "Don't thank me. If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have been in that position in the first place."

Uravity was watching the earlier events on her phone, her screen momentarily lit up with an image of Midoriya's fire. She smiled lecherously. "You've got a good body."

Midoriya felt himself turning pink. "It's not as if I wanted to get naked."

"That's what Mirio says too." Uravity's grin was sly.

"Give it up, Uraraka." Todoroki rolled his eyes. "He's married."

"Aww." Uravity gave Midoriya a final, sidelong glance before returning her attention to her phone. "The fansites are going wild about this footage. They're calling him the phoenix hero."

"But-" Midoriya pulled a face. "I didn't do anything heroic."

"Didn't you?" Uravity, or Uraraka as Todoroki had called her, pressed a finger to her chin. "Because from here it looks like you're guarding a crowd of civilians from a villain with drills for hands." She turned the volume up on the video, and Midoriya heard himself shouting for the crowd to get back.

Todoroki frowned. "Did they get his name?"

"Doesn't look like it," said Uraraka, and Midoriya felt a wave of relief. Uraraka flipped through a chat feed as they headed to the meeting room. "Permafrost ruining the audio as usual. But I see why you called a meeting. Who else is coming?"

"The usual crowd," said Todoroki. "And Sasaki, since he's already involved."

"You're inviting Bakugou to your house?" said Uraraka, eyeing up Todoroki's expensive looking wall hangings- traditional paintings on silk panels. "We have agency buildings for that kind of thing, you know."

"There was a Liberation Army attack on the street outside," said Todoroki. "If there's another one, I want to be here."

Sir Nighteye arrived next, giving curt nods to Uraraka and Todoroki before taking a seat across from Midoriya. "You're having an interesting day," he said, and Midoriya wondered how much of his future Nighteye had seen.

"I, uh, burnt the clothes you bought me," said Midoriya, finding himself too tired to be embarrassed about it.

Nighteye looked away, his expression unreadable. "You should be more careful. The clothes are inconsequential, but dying three times in a day is sheer carelessness."

Midoriya found himself bowing, his customer service reflexes kicking in once more. "I'll be more careful in future."

Nighteye gave a toothy smile, one which vanished as soon as it appeared, and he busied himself with his briefcase. "See that you do."

"Sorry we're late." A tall blond man dressed in chinos and a polo shirt stepped through the door, and it took Midoriya's brain a second to register that he was the top-ranked hero, Lemillion. Holding his hand was a woman with long blonde hair and western features- the world's foremost hero support item specialist, Professor Melissa Togata. She wore a brick red corduroy suit with a matching cravat. "We had to take a detour to pick up some of Melissa's equipment."

"It's okay. We're still waiting on the explosion riot hero agency," said Todoroki. "Did any of you want tea?"

"Oh!" Uraraka perked up. "Do you have any of that nice black tea?"

Nighteye looked up from his screen, the document he was viewing reflected in his glasses. "If you're making some."

Todoroki nodded, sliding open the door to the kitchen. "I'll make a pot."

"Sir." Lemillion- it was impossible for Midoriya to think of him as anything but Lemillion- let go of his wife's hand as he stared at Nighteye. "It's been a while."

"Twenty hours," said Nighteye.

"That doesn't count. We didn't talk."

Nighteye's expression was rigid, immaculately controlled. "What would I say to you?" he asked.

There was an awkward silence in the room, and Melissa squeezed Lemillion's arm. "Did Nejire-chan say if she could come?" she asked, looking to Uraraka.

Uraraka shook her head. "She's still on patrol. Kirishima and Bakugou are coming, though."

"In the new Riotmobile?" Melissa's expression brightened. "I've been wanting to take a look at that- Hatsume sent me the spec the other week."

"Darling," said Lemillion, his tone faintly disapproving as he tore his gaze from Nighteye.

"Yes, darling?" Melissa looked at him over the top of her oval glasses. "I'm the world's most intelligent woman. I can pay attention to more than one thing at once."

The tension in the room broke as Lemillion gave a soft laugh, his eyes full of love, and Midoriya felt a pang of jealousy watching the two of them.

Todoroki returned with the tea, and there was the low growl of an engine outside. Midoriya found himself gripping the fabric of his yukata over his knees as he heard Kacchan's voice, raised in complaint, through the walls.

The last time he had seen Kacchan in person was at his failed attempt to get onto UA's hero course. He'd seen him on television, of course, and on the videos on fansites, Kacchan's face on action figures and sportswear and cereal boxes. But Kacchan hadn't seen him in all this time. Would he even remember him?

"Kacchan!" Midoriya got to his feet as his old friend stepped into the room, his body as ever acting before his brain could get a word in edgeways. Kacchan looked the same as ever, his cable knit sweater hanging from his broad shoulders and his face fixed in a near permanent sneer.

Kacchan froze, and Red Riot nearly bumped into the back of him. "You!" Kacchan spat, staring at Midoriya.

Red Riot frowned, stepping around his partner and into the room. He was dressed casually, a black and red flannel shirt over a black undershirt, but his red hair was distinctive. "You know this guy, man?"

Kacchan grunted an affirmative. "Our moms made us play together when we were kids." His gaze flicked over the other people in the room- Todoroki, Uraraka, Lemillion and his wife Melissa, Sir Nighteye- his expression shifting to a glower. "This better not be another fucking intervention."

"I saw you made third place in the hero rankings this week," said Midoriya, hoping this would appease his old friend. "Congratulations!"

Kacchan unleashed a stream of profanity at him, only Red Riot's arm around his neck stopping him physically attacking Midoriya.

"See, stuff like this is why you're only number three," said Uraraka, watching the scuffle from her place at the table.

Kacchan's attention shifted to the number two hero, murderous. "Shove it, moonface. My stats are better than yours."

"They are." Uraraka was serene. "And every time you get close to the top ranks you lose your temper again."

"You explode one dog and suddenly you're a bad guy," growled Kacchan, but he stopped struggling against Red Riot's hold, swiping his partner's arm away. Midoriya remembered the incident from a couple years ago- Kacchan had done it to save a bus full of elementary age schoolchildren. Unfortunately this detail had been omitted by the press, and by Kacchan himself, and had cost him double digits in the popularity ratings.

"If you'd done that apology tour like I suggested-" Uraraka sipped her tea, pinky finger extended away from the cup.

Kacchan gave a derisive snort. "I apologise to no-one."

"We noticed," said Todoroki.

"So if this isn't an intervention, what's this quirkless piece of shit doing here?" Kacchan asked, tilting his head to Midoriya as he stalked to the table and sat. There were more empty seats around the table than occupied, but Kacchan and Red Riot seemed to be the final people the group were expecting.

Lemillion frowned, seeming like he wanted to say something, but Todoroki gave him a look.

"Maybe it's easier if you see for yourself," said Nighteye, taking the laptop from his briefcase and placing it on the table, screen towards Kacchan. "I've assembled a montage."

Midoriya watched Kacchan's face as the screen flickered orange, his old friend's mouth twisting with muttered profanity before his red eyes finally met Midoriya's, flashing with anger.

"You fuck. You were holding out on us." Kacchan's nostrils flared. "This whole time you had a fucking broken quirk? You fucking regenerate?"

"I believe that Mr Midoriya comes back from the dead," said Nighteye, as if this was a perfectly rational thing to say. "And it is imperative that he gain a provisional hero license as soon as possible."

Kacchan stared at the retired pro, his mouth open slightly. "What? Why?"

Uraraka put down her tea. "Because Shouto screwed up. Midoriya torched one of the villains who attacked him, and then Shouto took responsibility for the injuries. Without at least a provisional license they're both going to fall foul of the anti-vigilante laws. We'll lose our number four."

"But the license won't be retroactive," said Midoriya, and immediately wished he'd kept his mouth shut as the entire group turned to look at him. "That won't work. Will it?"

"Technically, he's right," said Melissa, who had been scribbling something in a notebook as the others talked. "Getting a license after the fact doesn't stop it being a vigilante activity. But the courts don't tend to prosecute people who are already heroes. Statistically speaking." She smiled.

"Alright!" Red Riot gave a grin, pumping his fist in the air. "Let's commence Operation: Haul Todoroki's Ass Out of the Fire!"

"Can we not call it that?" asked Todoroki.

"Isn't this too convenient?" Lemillion frowned. "This man appears, and he just happens to be Bakugou's childhood friend, with a quirk that just happens to have manifested late in life? We know that the Liberation Army has been trying to get an informant inside the Hero Association. What if he's a fake?"

"No." Kacchan shook his head. "He's no fake. You can't fake being that much of a shitty loser."

"Thanks, Kacchan." Midoriya pulled a sour face.

Nighteye nodded. "I think it's safe to say that everyone in this room is trustworthy, at least."

It felt like a dream, a roomful of pro-heroes discussing the best way for him to get his license, but Midoriya felt tired and overwhelmed, his nerves still jangling from the fight. Kacchan was trying to advocate for Todoroki to take the fall, but the others, particularly Nighteye, were shutting him down. When Melissa made an excuse to go outside, he seized on the opportunity and asked to join her.

The night was calmer than when he'd first left the compound, though the flashing blue of police lights were still visible, reflected on the spikes on the top of Todoroki's walls, and the air was still. Midoriya huffed a sigh of relief as he stepped outside. He was a little cold in his thin robe, but it beat a lot of the sensations he'd had that day.

"It was pretty tense in there, huh," he said.

Melissa nodded. "Mirio misses Sasaki. They used to be really close."

"What happened?"

"I don't know." Melissa looked up at the sky. "I never knew him that well, before, but after Uncle Might died, he changed. Passed his agency to his sidekicks, started shutting himself off from the world. Mirio says he stopped laughing at his jokes."

"Oh," said Midoriya. He supposed he hadn't felt much like laughing after All Might had died either. "That's understandable, I guess."

"What does it feel like? Death, I mean."

"I don't know how to describe it. I guess I'm the only person who can describe it, aren't I?" Midoriya frowned. "Sorry, that's probably not very helpful is it. Um." He swallowed, his memories of the day threatening to overwhelm him. "It hurts. A lot. Even if it's instant. It's like all of your senses are switched off, and you're in a dark room, and you can't touch anything. It's horrible."

He looked up to see Melissa writing frantically in her notebook, more than the words he had said. From where he was sitting, he could see the crown of her head, a couple of stray grey hairs sticking up and catching the light.

"Sorry," she said, adjusting her glasses a little sheepishly. "It's a new quirk- your Rekindle. It's important to learn as much about these things as we can."

"Rekindle," repeated Midoriya. "Is that what everyone's calling it?"

"It's what I'm calling it," said Melissa.

"It's a good name," said Midoriya, and was privately delighted when Melissa circled something in her notebook in response.

"Can you show me where it happened?" she asked, and Midoriya gave a nod, leading her out of the compound and back onto the street.

They walked past the Riotmobile, parked at a skew beside a police car, a monstrosity of red spikes and spoilers. Melissa stooped to peer under the wheel arches, but otherwise remained focused on the task at hand.

To Midoriya's relief, the press had been banished from the street, as had the rabid Permafrost fans. There was police tape everywhere, but enough time had passed that the forensics teams had gone home, leaving a few tired looking officers guarding the site. Melissa talked to the officer in charge, flashing a badge, and the cordon was lifted for them.

"I guess you don't need me to tell you where it happened," said Midoriya, as he viewed the area for the first time under the bright halogen lights the police had put up. There were two smoking craters in the tarmac. "If it helps, they seemed smaller when I was in them."

"They might have been." Melissa pulled a square black device from her pocket, about the size of her phone. "Asphalt is a poor conductor of heat, so it would take a while for an area this wide to melt." She pressed a button, and squinted at the screen of her device. "Hey, it's still hot."

"You have a machine to tell you that?"

"Not just that." She turned the screen towards Midoriya, and he saw colours superimposed on a photo of the scene. "It gives a surface temperature map, and a 3D model of the area."

"That's incredible," said Midoriya.

"It's not," said Melissa, putting the device back into the pocket of her blazer. "Not compared to some things," she said, inclining her head to the crater.

"No-one back in that room seemed that impressed with… that," said Midoriya.

"Oh, they are." Melissa sucked in air through her teeth. "What you have to understand is there's not a person in that room who didn't wish someone they knew had that quirk, instead of you. Everyone's lost somebody. That group more than most."

Midoriya bowed his head, remembering the empty seats around the table.

"It's been thirteen years since my uncle died," Melissa continued, quietly. "And the world's still grieving. Mirio tries his best, but he'll never be the symbol of peace. People still see him as All Might's sidekick. They see him-"

"And they remember Kamino." Midoriya finished for her, squeezing his eyes shut. He saw it in his mind, as if projected on the inside of his eyelids- All Might brought to his knees in the rubble, his broad back hunching.

"But you-" said Melissa. "Up until yesterday, you were no-one. You had no quirk. And today-" she smiled, her eyes creasing at the corners behind her glasses, but her voice was iron. "Today you give hope to all of us quirkless pieces of shit out there."

Midoriya flinched. "Kacchan didn't really mean it like that."

Melissa gave him a sidelong look. "I think he did. You're just defending him because he's your friend. Right?"

"He's Kacchan," sighed Midoriya, as they headed back inside.

* * *

**A/N- Hey everyone, and thanks for all of the comments and encouragement! It really makes my day to see people enjoying the story. **


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N- Thank you all as ever for the comments and the follows, I'm honoured that this has caught everyone's interest. I considered having Bakugou test out Midoriya's quirk last chapter, but decided against it- #1 heroes don't kill. Not in cold blood at least.**

* * *

The heroes' meeting had lasted late into the night, and once everyone had taken their leave, Todoroki had rolled out a futon for Midoriya, insisting he stay over.

He couldn't help but notice the room that Todoroki had picked for him was one of the few in the house not to use traditional panelled walls, instead constructed with steel and what looked like emergency vents on the ceiling. Did the ice hero seriously expect him to die in his sleep? Midoriya lay down on the futon and let his tiredness take him. His body felt strange, the old pains in his shoulders and his knees conspicuously absent, and replaced by something akin to a full body ache. When he closed his eyes he remembered each of his deaths, bleeding out with a knife in his chest, and the abrupt shot to the head. He was stumbling, senses snuffed out. He was falling, jerked back to life and burning. The fire was in him, through his veins and in his throat. The fire rose from his mouth, unfurling in crimson and gold.

Midoriya woke, an ache in his upper back, his bedding mercifully unburnt. But maybe Todoroki hadn't been being entirely irrational when he put Midoriya in a fireproof room.

The group, Todoroki and the rest, had opted to put him in for the provisional license exam in a few week's time. He'd be entering under sponsorship from Uravity's hero agency, under a rarely used statute, intended to allow heroes from outside Japan to qualify for Pro status.

It was like a dream, and not the sort of dream that woke him sweating and gasping for cold air. He would realise his ambition, after all these years. Why did it feel so empty?

Sitting in the back of the Permafrost agency vehicle in yet another set of borrowed clothing, Midoriya wondered if he was still in a coma from his fight in the memorial garden. Or maybe from before that- he'd been beaten pretty badly fighting muggers the other year. It seemed too easy.

He half expected Fumiko to be there when he got in, cooking him some katsudon, but the windows of his apartment were as dark as ever. He thanked the sidekick who had driven him home, a mid-ranker with the hero name of Five Kelvin, and walked up the stairs on the exterior of his apartment building.

He was at his front door when he remembered his key had been melted. As had his phone, and his wallet, all left as slag in a crater in front of Todoroki's house. Midoriya swore under his breath, his hand still on the handle of his door.

"Are you okay?" One of his neighbours, a dark-haired girl- came up the stairs behind him. He recognised her, but they'd never talked beyond exchanging greetings if they passed each other on the way in or out, and she was a university student, so their schedules rarely coincided.

"I'm fine, Miss-" Midoriya scrambled to remember her name from the nameplate outside her door. "Fuchikawa?"

"Fuchigawa." She grinned, her teeth straight and white.

"Yeah, sorry." Midoriya smiled back weakly, rubbing the back of his head. "I seem to have locked myself out."

"I could have a look at it," she offered.

"That's nice, but I'm not sure how it would help." Midoriya rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm fairly sure we don't have the same key."

"This is embarrassing, but I get locked out all the time. So I'm sort of an expert at getting back in." Fuchigawa gave a guilty looking smile, her eyes creasing at the corners. A flush of pink crept up from the pale skin of her neck. "Thankfully these doors aren't too well constructed. Stand back."

"What are you going to do?"

"I won't break anything. I promise." Fuchigawa tilted her head towards him, and Midoriya stepped back, flushing slightly. "Well, maybe a little." She squared off with the door, and lifted her leg, resting the sole of her foot on the door near the handle. She was wearing a skirt, and the movement revealed the creamy skin of her thigh.

Midoriya looked away, coughing slightly. "Are you sure that's necessary?"

"You've gotta hit it just right," Fuchigawa assured him, licking her lips, and with that she drew her leg back and delivered a solid kick to the door. There was a bang as her foot made contact, and sure enough, there was a click as the door mechanism unlocked, leaving the door hanging open. Fuchigawa's face lit up, and she struck a victory pose. "Yish! First time!"

"Thank you," said Midoriya, kneeling to examine his front door. True to her word, Fuchigawa hadn't damaged it that badly, only a small dent where her foot had struck. He'd have to write his landlord about it later. "Our apartments really aren't very secure, are they?"

"Sure aren't!" Fuchigawa grinned again, seating herself on the safety rail opposite Midoriya's door. Her legs swung back and forth. "Just about anyone could break in."

Midoriya found himself admiring how she moved, the easy strength of her legs, and immediately felt guilty. She was a college student, much too young for him, and besides, he had bigger things to worry about. Like how the hell he was going to pass the provisional license exam. He stepped through his door and into his entry hallway. "Maybe I should get a deadbolt," he mused.

"You're not going to invite me in?" Fuchigawa asked, as he was about to close the door behind him.

"I wasn't expecting guests," said Midoriya, truthfully.

"We could share my food," said Fuchigawa, holding up her convenience store bag. Midoriya's stomach rumbled, reminding him that he'd refused Todoroki's offer of breakfast. The only food in his house was two day old meat buns and Kacchan flavoured cereal.

"Alright," said Midoriya, holding his door open for her. She wandered in without hesitation, a smile plastered across her face. "Sorry," he added. Fuchigawa's presence made the unloved, bachelor-like nature of his apartment suddenly very obvious, as if a beam of sunlight had come in, and brought the underside of his particular rock to light. His heavy bag, in particular, hung there like an accusation, its brown surface mottled with wear and sweat, and All Might stared down at the two of them from the walls. "Like I said, I wasn't expecting guests." Midoriya hurried past Fuchigawa, cracking open a window.

"It's okay," Fuchigawa twirled on the ball of her foot, looking at the All Might figure on his counter, next to the brown envelope from Fumiko. "Compared to some of the places I've lived, this is beautiful." She looked up at Midoriya's posters. "You must really like All Might, huh."

"Ah. Yeah."

She sat on the arm of his couch, hugging her legs to her chest. "Why?"

Frowning, Midoriya decided that the safest place to sit was the floor in front of the sofa. "Why do I like All Might?"

Fuchigawa handed him a plastic-wrapped bun from her bag. "Why do you admire him? Is it because he was strong?"

"No, not really." Midoriya winced internally at her use of the past tense. Was. "I guess you're too young to remember him, huh."

She cocked her head. "I'm not that young."

"But the thing about All Might that I admire… it wasn't that he was strong. Or even the strongest. But that he was always there. And smiling. For us." Midoriya closed his eyes, remembering All Might on the roof the day he had met him. His emaciated form, and the blood on his lips. "He always smiled, even when things were hard. That's what a true hero is, I think. Even when he was hurt, or his eyes were full of vinegar, like the vinegar river incident." He looked up, his smile crooked. "Sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"Not at all!" Fuchigawa pulled two buns from her bag and took a bite of one of them, chewing quickly before she continued. "I think we should get to know our neighbours better. And it's important to know what people value. Bun?" She offered him the other, still wrapped.

"You're a good neighbour, Fuchigawa," said Midoriya, accepting the bun and tearing the plastic open. "If you hadn't helped me, I might still be stuck outside waiting for help."

She smiled shyly at his praise. "Should we use first names?" she asked. "I mean, since we are neighbours."

With a twinge in his gut Midoriya realised there was no-one in the world that he was really on first name terms with anymore, apart from maybe Kacchan. But Kacchan was more likely to call him _Deku_ or _Imbecile_ than actually use his given name. He took a bite of his bun, chewed and swallowed it. It was sweet.

Slowly, he nodded. "I'm Izuku," he said.

"Pleased to meet you, Izuku," Fuchigawa tilted her head, her eyes narrowing as she grinned. "I'm Himiko." She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a tube of crisps. "You want some of these, too?"

Midoriya squinted at the label on the side, cheerful text reading _extra salty_. "Aren't these meant to be bad for your blood pressure?"

"What are you, an old man?" Himiko laughed to herself. "If you don't want any, just say so."

"No, I want some." Midoriya held out his hand. "Please."

"If you say so." Himiko tipped a few of the stick-shaped potato snacks onto his palm, then paused, staring. "What happened to your hand?"

"Oh." Midoriya closed his scarred hand around the chips, a little self-conscious. "I got in a fight a few years ago. My whole body was pretty badly damaged."

"You're not secretly a spy or something, are you?" Himiko popped a chip delicately into her mouth. "Or a villain," she added.

"Oh, goodness no," said Midoriya, nearly dropping his food. "Never."

"So what are you doing home in the middle of the day on a week day? I thought you worked."

"You're home in the middle of the day too," Midoriya countered, pausing to eat.

"I'm a student. We're on winter break." She leaned backwards, hooking her knees around the arm of the sofa. "What's your excuse, Izuku?"

"I've… had a crazy couple of days," said Midoriya. "I'm sort of at a loose end right now." That was technically correct. Todoroki and the others had told him to keep a low profile until the provisional license exam.

"A man of leisure!" smiled Himiko, and Midoriya found himself smiling back.

"Ah, I guess." Midoriya shook his head, turning his attention back to his food.

"You should come to the gym with me later. We could spar."

Midoriya looked up at Himiko. She was small, much smaller and lighter than him, her bone structure delicate. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea."

"Oh, come on. I spar with my friends all the time."

"I'm a guy. And I'm bigger than you."

"Some of my friends are guys," said Himiko. "And they spar with me."

"Alright." Midoriya rubbed his shoulder. The dull ache from the morning had persisted. "But you're not allowed to complain if I beat you."

"It's a deal." Himiko scooped up the trash from their meal into her convenience store bag. "I'll meet you outside in half an hour, okay?"

Midoriya showered and changed into his gym gear, grabbing the bag with his inside gym shoes from his wardrobe. All of his clothes felt a little uncomfortable after a day in borrowed attire, but he put it down to his newly Rekindled skin. Maybe he should change his laundry detergent.

Himiko was waiting for him on the gantry as she had promised, now dressed in gym gear, her dark hair tied back in twin buns and a water bottle in her hand.

Midoriya closed his door behind him, uneasy at his lack of key. "Maybe I shouldn't leave my apartment like this."

"Why not? It's not like you have anything anyone would want to steal," said Himiko.

Midoriya stood stock still, feeling like she'd just punched the air out of his lungs. What did he have, really? A ten year old TV set, and some memorabilia for a dead hero. "Someone could steal my fridge."

"It's the middle of the day, no-one's going to break into your place." Himiko shook her head. "Real villains would wait until night time."

"I guess you're right." Midoriya gave a sigh, joining her on the stairs.

They walked to the nearby gym, changing their shoes when they were inside. It wasn't a big place, just a warehouse that some enterprising soul had converted into a chain gym, but on a weekday afternoon it was empty save for housewives on the treadmills and old men being naked in the changing rooms.

Midoriya paused to watch the screens in front of the treadmills as they passed. They showed Uravity on her daytime talk show, interviewing a family whose son had been recruited by the liberation army, as a movie star looked on sympathetic from the other couch.

A sign next to the free weight area reminded power type quirk users to please not bend the barbells or damage the building. Midoriya walked with Himiko to the mats, a large area usually used for things like group callisthenics or tai chi. There were mirrors around the edge of the area, and they showed Midoriya and Himiko side by side. Midoriya frowned at his reflection. The hem of his sweatpants hung a little above his ankles. Had they shrunk in the wash?

"Izuku-" Himiko called playfully. "Did you come here to watch yourself in the mirror, or did you come here so I could hurt you?"

"Ah. Sorry." Midoriya watched his reflection run a hand through his hair. "I was just thinking about something."

They circled each other, Midoriya keeping his guard round his midriff, ready to raise to his face. Himiko seemed nice, but girls in general were much too happy to land a low blow on a guy, and Midoriya didn't fancy adding nut-shot onto the catalogue of injuries he'd experienced in the last few days.

Unfortunately, it seemed that he had underestimated Himiko's skill level. Her first punch was faster than his eyes could follow, and left his ears ringing. Midoriya backed off, shaking his head, and Himiko grinned at him wolfishly.

"I told you I do this all the time, right?"

"Yeah." Midoriya frowned, adjusting his stance. "I should've listened to you."

"Again?" she asked, and Midoriya grunted agreement.

Himiko's next flurry of blows- both punches and kicks- was blindingly fast, and even prepared, Midoriya struggled to block, finding himself forced to step back out of range as she attacked, bruising his arms with repeated strikes. A single solid punch from him would end it, he suspected, but he had no desire to hurt his neighbour.

He watched her move, her reflection in the mirror. He couldn't keep up with the speed of her strikes, but he could predict them. Himiko's fist came in again, lightning fast, and Midoriya went for a grab, catching the small girl by the wrist and arm, and throwing her to the mat judo style.

She grinned up at him from the mat. "You're not bad at this."

"Well, I do hold a couple of black belts." Midoriya held out his hand to help her up. It was more like five- he'd started training when he'd been trying to transfer onto UA's hero course. He'd not found one that had compensated for his lack of quirk, or that stopped him getting beaten up when he intervened, but since when had an exercise being futile discouraged him?

"You're holding back!" Himiko's expression shifted to a pout.

"Of course I am." Midoriya took a step back, establishing distance between them again. "We're sparring, not trying to kill one another."

"I suppose." Himiko brushed herself off, stretching. "But even so, you could be trying harder." She leapt into the air, vaulting clean over Midoriya's head and kicking down as she passed.

Midoriya pivoted on the balls of his feet, raising his arms to block her. "You're pretty fast. You don't have a speed quirk, do you?"

"Oh no," Himiko shook her head. "My quirk is this-" she raised her hands and spread her fingers, and Midoriya watched as the whites of her fingernails extended about half an inch before retracting again. "I can grow and shrink my fingernails. It's pretty much useless."

Which meant they should be evenly matched. Midoriya frowned. He'd shown no sign of being able to control flame beyond when Rekindle resurrected his body, so in situations like this, he'd be on equal footing with someone who was quirkless.

He blocked another kick from Himiko, feeling the impact on his arm. He needed an edge, but right now all he had was a blatant disregard for his own life. And, if he was being honest with himself, he'd always fought that way. Had his body known about his quirk, even if he hadn't?

What heroes fought like that? Midoriya rifled through his memories as he pivoted to face Himiko again. Keeping track of her was tricky, even if she didn't have a speed quirk.

There was Red Riot, of course, but he relied on the offensive capabilities granted by his Unbreakable form. Midoriya was just flesh, until he wasn't. He'd be up against teenagers from both UA and Shiketsu, teenagers with top-tier quirks. Would flesh be enough?

Distracted, he failed to raise his guard in time, and Himiko's foot struck his face. Midoriya stumbled, tasting blood.

Himiko dropped her fighting stance, and stared at him, her eyes big. "Are you okay, Izuku?"

Midoriya stuck a finger in his mouth, feeling the damage. Thankfully, none of his teeth felt loose. "Just cut the inside of my cheek, that's all," he said, wiping the blood from his mouth. "It looks worse than it is."

"Okay." Himiko nodded, skipping back. "Another round, then?"


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N- Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you enjoy this lighthearted instalment of my story!**

* * *

Midoriya was feeling battered and drenched with sweat by the time Himiko finished with him, returning to her own apartment with a singsong _later, Izukuu_. Midoriya showered again, dumping his gym gear in his laundry basket, and pausing to examine the collection of bruises blooming under the skin of his arms and chest. The place Himiko had kicked him in the face was swelling up, but that was just the nature of facial injuries- they always looked worse than they were. And if his quirk was really returning from death, Midoriya supposed he'd better get used to pain. He put on a pair of pyjama bottoms and logged into his computer. He'd never been much of a gamer, so it was pretty much the same machine he'd had as a teenager, give or take a few parts.

A little nervously, he opened the hero fansites he still followed. They were traditional style message boards for the most part, and since he'd been on them forever, he'd earned moderator status on one or two of them. His handle was the one he'd held on to since forever, _AllMight#1Fan_, and it might have been a little dated, but he was glad he had kept it. Scanning down the front page, he looked for threads about his deaths last night. There were more than a few, but they seemed to contain the same two videos, and aside from users speculating on the exact nature of his abilities, the discussion was pretty dead. Midoriya went through the threads, archiving the majority of them, and considering his approach carefully before he posted to the largest of the threads.

_Latest information is that this man's Quirk is called "Rekindle"_, he wrote. _Seems like it's some kind of high speed regeneration._

It might have been risky, but he owed the site members that much. A couple of members responded immediately, asking him what his source was, but he didn't reply. He was a site moderator, so most people would take his word for it.

The other topic filling the boards was a string of sightings of Ingenium in Musutafu. Most of the supposed images had the approximate quality of potato prints, but at least one enterprising photographer had managed to train a tele-lens camera on the vigilante.

The vigilante was kneeling on the verge of a rooftop, if kneeling was even a word that could be applied to him anymore. His legs had been crippled by the notorious Hero Killer Stain, so badly that he'd been forced to retire as a pro hero.

Ingenium, or Tensei Iida to use his civilian name, had chosen to amputate his own legs and allow his quirk to regrow in place of the missing tissue, like a scar. Waist down the vigilante was entirely mechanical, a twisted mass of pipes and vents, with nozzles to control his direction. The media had dismissed his unconventional recovery, claiming he would never function properly in his strange new body, that was, until he'd used that body to murder Stain. Midoriya wasn't sure if it was his knowledge of what Ingenium had done, or if he just uncomfortable with the man's quirk, but he found the pictures of the vigilante deeply unsettling. Even half shrouded in shadow, Ingenium looked inhuman, the angle of his spine and neck skewed into a position that would be uncomfortable for a normal body.

Midoriya rubbed his aching shoulders, closing the image on his screen. He had better things to do than stare at a man who had thrown his dream away.

The next day he wrote his landlord about getting a new key and bought a deadbolt from the store. It wouldn't stop people breaking in while he was out, but it would at least stop anyone kicking the door in while he slept. The next thing on his list was replacing his phone and bank cards. Considering that his quirk had destroyed his last phone and that with any luck he'd have a hero-issue communications device, Midoriya opted for the cheapest phone that he could find, a simple model that just did text messages. He ported the number over from his previous phone, though his contacts were lost.

There was one message for him, from an unknown number, sent at 6:01am that morning. It read, _sign the divorce papers. _Midoriya smiled and saved the number. Todoroki. The papers in question were still on the side, still in the envelope they had come in. It was as if Midoriya's world had moved around them, leaving them in place, an anchor in the universe.

He picked the envelope up, held it in his hands and sat on the floor between his couch and television. They'd moved into the apartment together, laughing young university graduates in matching black and white business suits and shiny shoes. It had been empty the first night, and they'd eaten takoyaki from a street vendor and slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. She'd been happy with him, hadn't she? Maybe him finally realising his dream would make her reconsider. But she'd always been most upset when she'd been standing at his hospital bed, begging him to stop putting himself into danger. Being a pro-hero was no guarantee to an end to that sort of situation, but maybe his quirk was.

Midoriya stared at the forms, the empty space for him to put his name. He had promised Todoroki he would sign them. Maybe he should call Fumiko. He dialled her number from memory, saving it into his new phone, but something stopped him calling it. If he reconnected with her now, she'd take time away from him training for the exam. Sighing, Midoriya put the forms back in the envelope, put the envelope back on the side. What Todoroki had said had been right. She'd made her choice, whether he cared for it or not. But he couldn't bring himself to give up on her, and that was what signing the forms felt like.

Midoriya spent his next few evenings watching videos of the sports festivals from the hero schools across the country. Not just Shiketsu and UA, but the minor schools like Ketsubutsu and Seijin. Videos from the lower ranked schools were harder to track down, but proud parents tended to put theirs online, and the schools themselves published showcase reels as part of their promotional material for prospective parents. He quickly filled a notebook with observations. There was no telling exactly who he'd be competing against, but just as there had been clear powerhouses in UA, there were front-runners in each of the schools. A kid with a frightening level of control over tarmac, a kid who could extrude diamond shards from his body, a kid with the power to excrete a powerful glue from her hands. The list went on, and Midoriya watched the videos on repeat, hoping his activity wasn't getting him put on some sort of list.

Information on the license exam was scant. Midoriya knew that the format tended to change each year. He browsed the boards he moderated, reading other people's speculations on the sports festival results for the top two schools.

Every day, Himiko came over, bugging him to spar with her again, and Midoriya generally obliged her, stopping at the convenience store on the way back to buy snacks and a few ingredients for supper. He'd never been much of a cook, but he could manage a simple curry and stuff like cabbage rolls, which was apparently more than his new friend. She sat on the arm of his couch, her knees tucked under her chin as she watched him prepare the food, peppering him with questions. _Would he make the curry with some red meat this time? Why did he want to be a hero? Did he think chickens had souls?_ And so on.

Midoriya found he didn't mind. Not having a job meant that he spent a lot of time alone, so he welcomed the chance to talk with Himiko. He'd missed having someone to eat supper with after Fumiko had walked out, more than he'd have liked to admit. Even if Himiko was much too young for him, the prospect of having her walk into his apartment made him keep the place cleaner than he would have otherwise, his bed neatly folded away in its cupboard and his heavy bag wiped down. To his annoyance, his favourite red trainers didn't seem to fit well anymore, and he stretched a bit of his already thin budget to buying new ones for himself, a size up from his old ones. Now that he didn't have a job, he pretty much lived in his gym gear, drawing suspicious looks from people as he ran circuits of the neighbourhood.

He had a second chance. To realise his dreams and be a hero. He wasn't going to mess it up. When he slept, new dimensions added themselves to his dreams of dying, the faces of the kids in the sports festivals, leering down at him, throwing a ball bearing through his skull with pinpoint accuracy or exploding into razor sharp crystals under his fists. He couldn't lose. Not now.

In the second week he went to the storage unit he rented and brought out his childhood notebooks, volumes one through twenty. His notes on quirk combinations, support items, everything. After a little hesitation, he took out the rest of his All Might merchandise too, the posters carefully rolled into cardboard tubes and the plush toys in vacuum packs. It was almost like reviving his childhood self, inviting the ghost of young Midoriya to watch him and cheer him on. There was even the costume design his mother had made for him, though that was both too small and too combustible to be practical.

From the outside it probably looked like he was having some kind of mental breakdown following the loss of his job.

Himiko, at least, was delighted by the new additions to his apartment, and would sit leafing through his notebooks, his special limited edition All Might sofa cushion squashed between her knees, as Midoriya constructed his support equipment. He could have asked Melissa Togata, he supposed, but it seemed a shame to distract her from her real job. And he didn't need much.

"Is that an _athletic cup_, Izuku?" Himiko scrunched up her face, the offending article dangling from her fingertips.

"You've tried to kick me in the balls at least three times this week," said Midoriya, taking the cup away from her. Thankfully, he'd not used it yet, so the smell it emitted was one of neutral rubber and plastic.

"Emphasis on the _tried_. You don't need that thing."

Midoriya flicked the athletic cup back into his pile of potential support equipment. "Think of it as a preventative measure."

Assuming his quirk worked every time and he could Rekindle from death, the biggest danger for him in any fight would be incapacitation. Protecting his balls was just part of that- he also needed to protect his face. Several of the kids in Shiketsu and UA's upper years had hypnotism or visual quirks, and a way to block out those was imperative. To that end, he'd taped a pair of noise-cancelling headphones to the inside of a motorcycle helmet, and tinted the visor.

"This is pretty good stuff," Himiko commented, peering down at his sketches for the gear. "How come you never got onto a support course?"

Midoriya thought about it a moment, turning the headphones over in his hands. It was hard to put in words what he'd felt at age fifteen, his failure to get onto the hero course an open wound, and All Might's voice in his ear, telling him to _be realistic_. "It would have been like giving up," he said. "Like admitting that everyone who told me I couldn't be a hero was right."

"And you don't give up." Himiko's eyes narrowed as she smiled at him.

Midoriya nodded grimly, slotting the headphones into the slot he'd cut in the helmet. "That's right," he said. "I don't."

* * *

Midoriya was not surprised when one of Uraraka's agency vehicles turned up to shuttle him to the exam. It was pink, with a white moon and stars across the side, along with the words _URAVITY HERO AGENCY_ in a friendly font. What was surprising was that Uraraka herself was driving it. Midoriya was waiting for her on the gantry outside his door, his support equipment in a gym bag over his shoulder as he tried to pretend he wasn't nervous.

"Hey Midoriya." Uraraka floated level with him, arms folded over her chest. "Are you ready for the exam?"

"Yes ma'am." Midoriya stood at attention. Should he salute, he wondered, watching the number two hero. Probably not. Uraraka didn't seem like the saluting type.

She poked at his kit bag with her index finger. "What's that?"

"Support equipment," Midoriya answered, pulling the bag a little closer to his body. "I heard that you're allowed it in the exam."

"You could have asked for help from our support department," said Uraraka, giving him an appraising look.

"I didn't want to bother anyone," said Midoriya, wondering for the first time if that was the right call. "These will be fine, though."

"If they've been approved by the ministry," said Uraraka, her expression sceptical.

"Which these have," said Midoriya brightly, pulling out the approval certificates from the front pocket of his kit bag. Apart from his helmet and a couple other pieces of minor protective gear, the only other concession he'd made to being basically quirkless was his weapons- taking heavy inspiration from Sir Nighteye, he'd packed himself a set of handheld weights, about five kilos each.

"Huh." Uraraka leaned forward and gestured, the certificates floating towards her.

Midoriya tried not to gape at her casual use of her quirk, a thousand questions spinning in his mind. At the UA entrance exam she'd had a touch limitation to her quirk, but by the time she was a pro she had overcome it somehow. What was her weight limit nowadays? The skyscraper the other month was probably two hundred and fifty thousand tons, but she probably hadn't reversed gravity on the whole thing, just enough of it to right the structure-

Uraraka pressed one finger to her lips as she looked up from the paperwork. "I guess you're not entirely an idiot. Your friend Lord Explosion Murder was trying to say you wouldn't know your ass from a hole in the ground."

"Ah, he remembers me as a dumb fourteen year old." Midoriya grinned, shoving the certificates back into their pocket. "I spent a couple of years doing the paperwork for equipment registration for Aoyama's sidekicks. The process is pretty simple once you know your way around the regulations. Did you know that the maximum allowable power for a laser based support item is five Watts? And it's less than that if it's infrared or-" He paused, looking sheepishly up at Uraraka. "I'm sorry, I do that a lot."

Uraraka laughed, her cheeks pink. "It's okay. Do you get this enthusiastic about everything or just regulations?"

"Uh, just hero things really." Midoriya headed down the stairs, Uraraka floating beside him. "I'm surprised you came to pick me up personally."

"You're meant to be joining my agency," said Uraraka with a small shrug. "So it's my reputation on the line." They got into the front of the van, Uraraka in the driver's seat. The steering wheel had a special design, Midoriya noted, with an indent so that Uraraka didn't have to keep her pinky fingers raised the whole time.

"Do you know anything about the test format?" he asked, as she started the engine and the van began to move.

"They change it every year," said Uraraka. "So I can't say anything for sure. Sasaki was on the advisory board for this year's exam, so he should know, but no-one's been able to get hold of him for weeks. I guess it's just as well- Mirio wouldn't approve of us cheating, even if it is for a good cause."

Midoriya frowned. "Shouldn't you be worried about Sir- about Sasaki?" he corrected himself. He couldn't help but think of the man by his hero alias.

"No," said Uraraka, her eyes on the road. Traffic lights reflected in the visor of her helmet. "He does that a lot. He's a strange sort of guy. Because of his quirk, I guess."

"He was a great hero, though," said Midoriya. "One time, back when he was a sidekick for All Might, they were visiting a town on a meet and greet tour, and he foresaw an earthquake. Rather than cancel the event, he had the location moved last minute to one of the buildings that he knew would survive the disaster, and had the organisers offer free admission, so that as many people as possible would be out of danger. He said it was statistically better than an evacuation, and caused less panic. It was a big earthquake, but All Might only had to rescue three people." Midoriya told the details of the story as he remembered them, mostly from the documentary that had been released about the event, and the cards that had come with the commemorative poster.

"I've not heard that one." Uraraka smiled. "It's a good story. Sasaki doesn't like to talk about that time, though. Not since, you know-"

Midoriya nodded. "Yeah, I know." Somehow everything came back to All Might's death.

Uraraka drove him to the location, pulling up in a car park filled with buses covered in school logos. Midoriya glimpsed the blue and white of UA and the black of Shiketsu. "Did the students go inside already?" he asked.

Uraraka frowned as she pulled into a parking space. "No, I was expecting them to be crowding the van by now. There might be something wrong. Wait there," she said, sliding the door open quietly.

"I'll come with you," Midoriya insisted, pulling on his protective helmet.

"It might be dangero-" Uraraka paused, hands on her hips. "Silly me, you're immune to death, aren't you? Fine." She shook her head. "In that case, come with me."

Midoriya nodded, following the number two hero as she crept behind the nearby Shiketsu school bus. He could feel his pulse quicken, his focus on Uraraka's small figure in front of him. She stalked to the front of the bus, and touched her own leg, floating a couple of feet off the ground, far enough to see through the bus windows. Midoriya drew close, unsure, and Uraraka pressed her fingers together, landing noiselessly in front of him.

"What did you see?" Midoriya asked, not daring to raise his voice above a whisper.

"Well, the good news is it's not a villain attack," said Uraraka, her cute features distorted into a frown.

"And the bad news?" Midoriya asked.

She sighed, rubbing the front of her helmet with her fingers. "It's Shouto."

Midoriya clambered up to take a look for himself. Shouto Todoroki. Or Permafrost. The Ice Prince, as the news sites called him. He was dressed as he had been when Midoriya had first met him, in his blue and white hero attire, a crown of ice covering his red side, and he was surrounded by teenagers clamouring for his autograph. He was handling it well on the surface, but Midoriya could see strain in the pro-hero's smile as the students bombarded him with questions and praise.

"We should help him," said Midoriya, firmly.

"He's a pro-hero. He should be able to handle a few teenagers."

"He's in distress," said Midoriya, remembering how Todoroki had followed him after he'd lost his job.

Uraraka made a frustrated noise. "You sound just like Mirio, you know that?"

"Uh, thanks, I guess?" said Midoriya. Was Uraraka seriously comparing him to the current number one?

Uraraka sniffed. "Just stay there."

There were astonished cries of _number two!_ and _Uravity!_ from the assembled students as Uraraka made herself known, smiling and waving, and a large segment of Todoroki's crowd moved to surround Uraraka instead, some of them asking for her autograph next to the ones Todoroki had just given. The voice she used to greet the students was a few notes higher than her usual speaking voice, and Midoriya wondered if heroes had customer service voices too. Todoroki nodded to Uraraka, and, spotting Midoriya, inclined his head in his direction too. Midoriya froze, momentarily starstruck, before he raised his hand in greeting. There were too many students still around Todoroki for the two of them to talk, but Midoriya could have sworn that Todoroki smiled at him.

"Could all applicants for the exam please come to the hall for registration?" A man in a business suit with a clipboard was standing by the entrance to the building, herding students inside, and the crowds around Uraraka and Todoroki started to disperse.

Midoriya moved to follow the crowd that was entering the building through the open double doors. To his surprise, Todoroki moved level with him, skating on a silvery ramp of ice.

"Are you afraid?" Todoroki asked, his voice its usual hard-to-read.

"I guess I am. My heart is beating fast, and I feel a little nauseous." Midoriya closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "I suppose mostly I hope that I don't let you down. You put a lot of faith in me."

Todoroki nodded seriously, and Midoriya wondered what he was thinking. "It's okay," he said, his voice low. "Just try not to die."

He walked on ahead, and it took Midoriya a good ten seconds to realise that Todoroki had been telling a joke.

* * *

The examination building reminded Midoriya of a convention centre more than anything else, attendants with red name badges rushing around in the big space, a stage set up for presentation at the front. There looked to be about a thousand examinees in all, about an average number.

The kids whispered to each other as he walked in and signed in at the desk, his motorcycle helmet covering his features. The rest of his outfit wasn't anything to write home about, just his regular gym gear- a pair of sweatpants and a tunic that showed his scarred shoulders, but it raised comment regardless. _Who's that guy? Is he a pro under the helmet? Some sort of villain? Is he part of the test?_ Midoriya resisted the urge to activate his noise-cancelling headphones, listening carefully for instruction from the podium. The kids moved in groups, and he clocked groups made of solely UA or Shiketsu students. The rest of the groups would probably be by school, too. Midoriya thought he'd seen a Seiai Academy bus outside, but it was hard to say for sure- their colours weren't exactly uncommon.

There was one kid who was alone, the groups moving around him. He had red hair, gelled up. Midoriya thought at first that he was staring through some kind of time portal. The kid was a dead ringer for a young Endeavour. He was nearly Midoriya's height already, and the lanky awkwardness of his frame, the relative size of his hands compared to the rest of his body, all spoke of a growth spurt yet to come. His eyes were blue, intensely blue, and the only thing that marked him from the original Endeavour was a white lock of hair over his left eye. And he wore a school uniform, a dark blue blazer with the words Koruson Private Middle School stitched in white above the crest. What was a middle school student doing here? Midoriya frowned.

"Hey, old guy." The boy tilted his head to one side, eyebrows raised. "Why are you staring at me like that? You a paedophile or something?"

"No, I-" Midoriya raised the visor of his helmet, figuring that the face cover really wasn't helping his case. "I was just thinking you looked a lot like Endeavour."

Sparks flared in the air around the boy, then winked out. He grinned. "That's because I am Endeavour," he said. "It's going to be my hero name."

"If everyone could quiet down and face the front," one of the organisers called. Around the hall other organisers were doing the same, quieting the groups that had formed. "Then briefing for the first task will begin."


	9. Chapter 9

"Thank you, everyone," the official on the podium cleared his throat. "The first task will be _suppression_."

There were surprised murmurs throughout the hall, and the official waited for them to die down before he continued.

"In a three versus three match, the task is to incapacitate all members of the opposing team as if they were villains, while keeping your own team members operational. To this end, we've provided each team with three pairs of restraints, to signify capture." He held up a pair of what looked like handcuffs, and the screen behind him showed the same item in close-up, revolving.

"The scenario will be an industrial city block, populated with fake buildings and factories. Though this is terrain purpose built for the exam, you are expected to treat it as if it is a real city, with residents and workers." The screen behind him flickered again, this time to an image of a city street, with crude depictions of happy people going about their business.

"You will be marked on teamwork, situational awareness, and collateral," said the official, and the image behind him changed, one of the buildings destroyed and the little people fleeing in terror. "You will be disqualified for life threatening injuries, or if the examiners judge that the collateral damage you cause would represent danger to human life in a real life situation."

There was more murmuring in the hall, as some of the students discussed what quantified as danger to human life, and the official cleared his throat again.

"If you look to the display on the far wall, we've assigned everyone to a team," said the official. "Please find your teammates, and come through to the marked briefing rooms."

Midoriya scanned the wall for his name, finding it quickly. Two other names were listed next to his.

_Izuku Midoriya. Risou Kakuyama. Ensetsu Todoroki._

"You're Todoroki, I guess?" he asked young Endeavour.

The boy rolled his eyes, eerily resembling _Shouto_ Todoroki rather than Enji for a second. "What gave you that idea?"

"The attitude," Midoriya answered.

Ensetsu's fierce facade broke as he gave a bark of a laugh.

"What the hell-" a teen who had been approaching them through the crowd stopped dead in his tracks. Midoriya recognised him as their third, Risou Kakuyama. Despite being older than Ensetsu by a couple of years, Risou was by far the shortest of the three of them. His black hair was tied back in a short ponytail, and like Midoriya he wore a sleeveless top, exposing his arms. Unlike Midoriya, however, he had what looked like seams around his joints, points where his skin seemed to crease into the meat of his arms. "_You're_ Ensetsu Todoroki? What are you, twelve?"

"I'm thirteen," said Ensetsu, sparks of flame flickering around his shoulders again. "And I would prefer if you called me by my hero name."

"You're a middle schooler." Risou looked around, horrified. "Where's Izuku Midoriya? Maybe we can talk to an organiser and get you switched out for someone else. You know where he is?" he asked, addressing Midoriya.

"He's me," said Midoriya, with an apologetic grin. "We make a pretty odd bunch, huh. But we'll get through this, don't worry. Plus Ultra!"

"Yeah." Ensetsu nodded approvingly, pumping his fist.

"What the hell?" Risou looked like his arms were about to pop off. "You're a fully grown adult. Neither of you are UA students. Why are you using their school motto?" _And what did I do to deserve this_, his eyes seemed to say.

"We don't need him," said Ensetsu, though his eyes were worried as he watched Risou go to a nearby official, the official shaking his head. "What quirk did he even have?"

"It's called Mannequin," said Midoriya, nodding to Risou's arms. "It lets him fire your arms like rockets, and then recall them to his body. His range is about fifty metres."

"How did you know that?" Risou scowled up at him as he returned from speaking to the official. It looked like he hadn't been allowed to swap teams. "Ketsubutsu doesn't even invite non parents to our sports festival, let alone televise it." He shook his head, brow creasing with irritation. "And it's closer to sixty now, for your information."

Midoriya nodded. If he remembered correctly, Risou had placed near last in his school's sports festival, losing in the first round to a kid who could rewind or fast forward up to three seconds of time in a small bubble around himself. The videos didn't show how Risou had lost, just the other kid running up to him, followed by Risou unconscious on the floor. Fast forward kid, who went by the name Teebo, had lost the round after to a kid with a powerful lightning quirk. "I know the quirks of most of the examinees," he said, simply.

The singularity meant that quirks were combining and getting stronger with every generation. It meant he couldn't afford to hold back. Not if he wanted to win. Midoriya ran down a list of mental rules for himself- no blows to the head- he didn't want to cause brain damage or broken necks. No purposeful dislocations. Chokeholds were fine, though. And unless they were up against power type quirk users, he would likely be physically stronger than any of the teenagers he was up against.

The attendant waved them to their door, and Midoriya stepped towards it, Ensetsu close behind him. Risou looked defeated as he followed behind them.

* * *

When they stepped into the room, featureless save for a couple of benches and a table with their restraining devices, the attendant stepped in behind them. "You'll be shown your opponents next, and then you'll have three minutes to discuss tactics before the door to the battleground opens. The timer will be up there," he said, pointing to a display above the door.

Midoriya thanked the man, and he made an exit back to the hall, leaving their small team alone in the room. "We should take one set of restraints each," he said, and neither of the others disagreed, picking up their own.

Ensetsu didn't have a handy place to clip them to, and so put them in the pocket of his blazer. "Who do you think we'll be up against?" he asked.

"Does it even matter?" Risou sniped at him. "You're a middle schooler and an old man."

Midoriya folded his arms across his chest. If the kid wanted to goad him, he'd have to do better than that.

"I'm not a child-" growled Ensetsu.

Midoriya glowered at him. "We're being marked on teamwork. So play nice. Both of you."

In any case, they didn't have to wait long to find out who their opponents would be, as the screen along the right wall soon changed from the hero association logo to three portrait images. They each wore Shiketsu's trademark hats as a part of their hero costume, a part of the uniform that hadn't changed since Midoriya had been their age. The timer above the door started to run down, and there was a rumble under their feet, as if their room was moving.

There was a girl with mousy brown hair, a blond boy with an amplifying collar around his neck, and a second boy, with dark hair and fractured gold irises. Their names, along with their kana readings, appeared under the portraits.

Noriko Tsukeshiro. Bonsuke Soranaka. Raiza Rito.

"Shiketsu-" Risou said the school name like it was a curse word. "Those guys are the elite."

"You said you know pretty much all of the applicants' quirks," said Ensetsu. "So, what can these guys do?"

Midoriya paused. Ensetsu had reminded him a lot of Kacchan initially, with his supreme overconfidence, and he'd not expected much in the way of co-operation, but the kid seemed pretty willing to listen.

"I know a bit," he admitted. "Noriko Tsukeshiro goes by the alias Miss Stick. She has an emitter type quirk, Glue, which allows her to excrete glue from her hands."

"Is that all?" Ensetsu looked unimpressed.

Midoriya frowned. "You shouldn't underestimate a quirk just because it seems innocuous on paper. Miss Stick finished in the top three in her year's sports festival two years in a row. She can incapacitate an opponent at range, and leave sticky patches on the ground as traps."

Midoriya rifled his internal herodex for information on the others. "The second guy has picked a hero alias too- Speakerstar. And he's another emitter type. His quirk is called Resonance- it lets him emit soundwaves at frequencies that destroy objects, like an opera singer and a wine glass. He can also use it to disorientate opponents."

"What frequencies does he use for disorientation?" Ensetsu asked.

"About fifteen hertz," Midoriya answered, wondering what possible use the boy had for that information. Ensetsu just nodded, a little smugly.

Risou looked worried. "He sounds kinda dangerous."

Midoriya gave a shrug. "The bigger problem is that he can also use his quirk to fly."

Risou gave a soft groan, rubbing his face with his hand under the visor of his helmet. "Why did I get stuck with you two weirdos? And against the Shiketsu elite, too-"

Ensetsu ignored him. "The third enemy?" he asked.

"Rito. Yeah." Midoriya rubbed his chin. "He hasn't picked a hero name yet. But his quirk is Premonition. It allows him to sense danger in the short term future. He doesn't have physical augmentation or any emitter capabilities that I know of, though I don't know what support gear he uses."

"What approach do you recommend?" asked Ensetsu.

He was looking at Midoriya like Midoriya was some sort of leader.

Midoriya bowed his head, assessing the quirks of each of their opponents, the likely combinations, and their likely tactics. "Rito is the most dangerous. He should be our first priority."

"But why?" Risou pulled a face. "You just said he didn't have any ability that could hurt us."

"Yes, but he has a powerful support ability, and he's working in conjunction with two of Shiketsu's heavy hitters." Midoriya spread his hands. "Think of it like Sir Nighteye supporting All Might."

Risou gave Midoriya a puzzled look. "Who's Sir Nighteye?"

"Don't worry about it," said Ensetsu, his blue eyes fixed on Midoriya. "I get what the old man is talking about. But how do we take out someone who can see the future?"

"It's not perfect. None of those kind of quirks are." Midoriya closed his eyes, running through the matches in the Shiketsu sports festival in his head. "He suffers on an open field like an arena match," he said, slowly. Without terrain to hide behind, Rito had struggled against his opponents. But he'd lost against an emitter type, who had filled the arena with dust. "And I'm not sure, but I think he's reliant on vision."

Ensetsu nodded, his mouth a grim line. "Okay. I'll blind him, then."

"How are you being so casual about that?" Risou rubbed his face.

Ensetsu didn't bother looking at the other boy. "We're going to win. Be grateful." He looked to Midoriya again. "What about the other two?"

"Miss Stick is more dangerous hand-to-hand, but Speakerstar can fly when he shouts at the ground," said Midoriya. "If he manages to carry Miss Stick into the air, I won't be able to intercept them."

"Can we stop him flying?" Risou asked. "I could use my arms to punch him in the throat."

"His voice box will be too well protected," said Midoriya, remembering the armoured collar Speakerstar had worn in his profile image, not unlike the one that had been worn by the pro hero Present Mic back in the day. "Particularly if Rito is still active. An indirect attack would be more effective."

"Our quirks don't really lend themselves to indirect attacks," said Ensetsu. "Unless you mean setting him on fire, which I'm pretty sure would get us disqualified."

"I didn't mean setting him on fire," said Midoriya, watching the countdown tick down. "But I do have a suggestion. I don't know much about your quirk, but I know about the original Endeavour's, and some of the tricks he used."

Ensetsu pursed his lips. "I'm listening."

"If you can heat up the air around him to dry it out, he'll lose his voice quickly. Preferably when he's in the air- he needs to use his voice to land safely." Midoriya closed his eyes, running through scenarios. Really, the variables were too many- he didn't know the layout of the arena, or how much their opponents had advanced since the Shiketsu sports festival, but he could think of a few likely ones. "A crash landing is the best case scenario for us. Tsukeshiro's glue is problematic, but she's limited in amount. If we can bait that out, I can take her on without much difficulty."

"How does her glue deal with high temperatures?" Ensetsu was watching the clock now too.

Midoriya shrugged. "No idea. Sometimes quirks like that lose their sticky properties with heat, but more often they're combustible. Feel free to try it if I'm stuck, but don't go setting yourself or Risou on fire by accident."

Ensetsu's eyes flashed with interest. "Your quirk is fire resistance?"

"My quirk is death resistance," said Midoriya, as the timer ran down and the gate opened.

The gate opened onto a wide tarmac street, buildings looming high on either side. Whoever had made it had gone to some effort making it look authentic, from the rail line overhead to the weathered look of the air filter apparatus and exposed pipework that stuck out of the fake factories.

"I know who you are." Risou's eyes widened in realisation, and he stared at Midoriya. "You're that guy with a Phoenix quirk."

"Phoenix quirk?" Ensetsu sounded interested.

"It's called Rekindle," said Midoriya, a little annoyed. "We should be focusing on the exam. They could come from anywhere."

"I saw him on the boards. With Permafrost. How could _you_ not know?" Risou frowned suspiciously at Ensetsu.

"Why would I watch my uncle on the internet?" Ensetsu gave a shrug, following along behind Midoriya. "He comes round for dinner most saturdays. Besides, if the old guy says his quirk isn't going to be useful here, he's probably right."

Their first glimpse of the enemy team was Speakerstar, using his quirk to propel himself into the air behind one of the faux factories, sunlight glinting off his armoured collar. Midoriya skidded to a halt, pointing out his position to the others.

"Okay. I'll hang back, you can peel." Orange sparks flickered over Ensetsu's shoulders.

"What about me?" Risou jabbed his own chest, and Midoriya felt a pang of guilt, remembering all the times he'd said the exact same thing as a kid. He'd been thinking of Risou as a liability, but the kid had just as much right to be there as Midoriya did- arguably more. Of the three of them, he was the only one on a hero course.

It wasn't that the kid was helpless either, just that as the second worst kid from ketsubutsu didn't stand much of a chance against their opponents. But that wasn't a heroic way of thinking. "For now you should stick with young Endeavour," said Midoriya.

"Alright. Showtime." Ensetsu gave a cocky grin, and Midoriya felt the air temperature around him rise rapidly, the tiny sparks of flame that he'd seen before coalescing and spiralling above the boy.

Midoriya glanced up at it, bright even through the tinted visor on his helmet. That was the singularity for you, he thought wryly. You got kids with the power of gods, and you just had to hope that they would be okay. Ensetsu seemed pretty well-adjusted, all things considered. A little hung up on a dead hero, but Midoriya wasn't in a place to fault anyone on that.

The fire formed into a ball, hanging in the air above their opponents for half a second before it split again, into hundreds of tiny, hissing comets. They fell as if the air was treacle, covering the area.

Midoriya caught a flash of movement from the side of the building, and sped forward, noise cancelling headphones on.

The golden-eyed kid, Rito, was on the floor, curled pre-emptively as Ensetsu's fireball hit from above. Midoriya half expected him to react, roll away from his attack, but the kid was slow. Midoriya hooked an arm around his neck and put him in a chokehold, watching the entrance Rito had fled from as he counted the seconds and the kid went limp. Easier than expected. Had Ensetsu actually managed to blind him with his attack?

Midoriya turned to check on Ensetsu and Risou, only to find that the two emitter types had cleared the building and were closing on them. Midoriya sprang to his feet, letting Rito fall. As he'd feared would happen, Miss Stick was riding on Speakerstar's back as he shouted at the ground, the force of his voice throwing them up in an unsteady flight as he avoided Risou's rocket arms.

But Ensetsu's flurry of sparks was in motion again, and Midoriya felt the air temperature skyrocket as he moved towards the fight. Speakerstar's movement faltered, and he turned his face towards Midoriya's teammates. A blast of sound shot out from Speakerstar's amp, tearing up the ground, and Midoriya was worried for a second before the dust cleared to show Ensetsu and Risou unscathed, Speakerstar hitting the ground with Miss Stick still on his back.

Midoriya didn't understand how Ensetsu had deflected Speakerstar's quirk until he noticed the concentric circles of frost on the ground around his teammates. Ensetsu must have changed the temperature of the air around him to change its acoustic impedance.

Midoriya charged the grounded Speakerstar, careful to use terrain Miss Stick wouldn't have had a chance to coat with glue, planting a kick firmly on the hero student's armoured chest. The student was launched back, hitting a wall. He'd barely reacted to Midoriya's presence- the heat wave must have really done a number on him. His body was still, so Midoriya guessed he was unconscious.

Now only Miss Stick remained. Midoriya turned to her, handheld weight between his fingers. The other two getting taken out so quickly was great, but it did mean that Miss Stick would still have a full reservoir of glue.

Midoriya took a fighting stance, and Miss Stick mirrored him, her palms open to better use her quirk. She threw the first jab, and Midoriya leaned aside, careful not to let her make contact. Was that all? Midoriya frowned as he watched Miss Stick move. Even his neighbour Himiko was faster than that. She pointed her palms down, spraying the ground at his feet, but Midoriya was already moving. If he headed forward, he'd end up stuck to her, and he couldn't be sure if that would count as incapacitation for him as well as her.

Midoriya glanced back at his team. Risou seemed unwilling to shoot his arms into the melee- since Miss Stick could just stick them down. Ensetsu was watching too, a fine haze of sparks circling around him, perhaps unwilling to attack into the glue and risk disqualification by incinerating Miss Stick.

Reaching the wall, Midoriya grabbed the unconscious Speakerstar by his armoured collar, and hurled him at Miss Stick. Her eyes widened, wrists raising reflexively to shoot away a projectile, but Speakerstar was too heavy for that, and she coated him in glue in the half second before he bowled into her, sending them sprawling to the ground in a pile.

"Bonsuke, wake up!" Miss Stick headbutted her teammate, her arms trapped beneath him.

"Secure them!" Midoriya called to his teammates as he pulled himself to his feet. The kid had been surprisingly light- maybe his costume was mostly padding. "Rito should be round the side still."

Before long, a chime sounded, and a display in the sky declared them victorious.

* * *

"Please could the winning team come through to the briefing room?" called an official over the intercom, and a strip of green lights led the way.

The briefing room was larger than the room they had started in, and already full of people. Midoriya had expected maybe students who had already passed the next round, but instead there was Uraraka, with Todoroki, and the pro hero Burnin in full hero attire, along with a couple of officials in suits.

Todoroki shot to his feet as they came in. "Ensetsu," he said, sharply. "What are you doing here?"

"Uncle." The boy inclined his head. "I should ask you the same question. Shouldn't you be doing hero work?"

Todoroki seemed unperturbed. "Does Fuyumi know you're here?"

"No. Why should she?" Ensetsu stared levelly at his uncle.

"You're in middle school," Todoroki hissed. Midoriya heard the crackle of ice as the temperature around the pro hero dropped.

"Cool it, ice boy." Burnin looked up from the magazine she had been reading. "The kid's with my agency."

"He's a _child_," said Todoroki, pained.

One of the officials cleared his throat nervously. "Examinees, we're pleased to tell you that the examiners have granted your team a bye on the next round of the first task. The second task will be an interview. If you could wait here with your sponsors-"

"I'm calling Fuyumi." Todoroki pulled a phone from a pocket in his costume, and swept from the room.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N - thank you all for the lovely comments, hope I keep you hype for future chapters**

* * *

Isuke Koenji was forty-five years old. He had worked for the hero department of the local government ever since graduating from Musutafu Public University at the age of twenty-one, and worked his way up. He wore his short hair in a side parting, and though he had rarely used it, official records remarked that his quirk was Moustache, just as his father's had been. He had spent five years overseeing quirk counselling on a local government level, another seven in various roles regarding hero agency regulation, and a brief secondment to the Justice department, where he had served on an advisory committee regarding the construction of Tartarus. His coworkers would say he was hard working, and precise to a fault, something they attributed to his strong work ethic. The truth, though, was that disorder upset him, on a base, almost primal level.

It was for this reason he had no children, knowing that the noise and chaos they would produce in his peaceful home would bring him nothing but distress.

Similarly, overseeing the bi-annual provisional hero license exams brought Koenji nothing but distress.

A hall teeming with teenagers, often given full license to harm one another, and the men and women who worked under him working hard to make the call- would this child be an asset as a hero, or a liability? It was an unenviable task- what administrator wanted to feel the guilt of knowing someone they had authorised lay dead in a disaster zone or at the hands of a vigilante? But people were people, and heroes were heroes. That was the way of the world.

The licensing system at least put a leash on the chaos.

The team he was supervising today were some of his less experienced examiners- a woman named Hoshi Kinugashima and a man named Minose Okuwa. Both of them were dressed neatly, official badges over their blazers and hair appropriate, but it didn't take a genius to tell that they were nervous. Kinugashima kept moving her hand as if to tuck a stray hair behind her ear, only to find it already pinned in place, and Okuwa fidgeted with his pen, holding it between two knuckles and rolling it back and forth.

It was up to Koenji to take the lead show them how these things were done. He wished, for a singular moment, that Sasaki could have found time in his busy schedule to attend- the mere presence of the foresight hero seemed to remove some of the chaos that made events like this so dangerous.

Koenji's moustache twitched as he viewed their assigned examinees. A ketsubutsu student, a full-grown man and a thirteen-year-old, the latter two sponsored by prominent hero agencies. It was irregular, to say the least.

He turned to his subordinates. "Places," he said, and the two of them hurried forward to sit in front of their monitors.

"The Todoroki kid's got an emitter quirk, I guess?" Kinugashima asked, eyes skimming briefly over all three files. If Koenji recalled correctly, she'd come to the department from industry, a company that specialised in support items.

"Yeah, paperwork says it's called Firestorm. Guess we better switch to thermal imaging," said Okuwa, already at the console, adjusting the display from the cameras set up around the arena. There were more than strictly necessary, but they tended to get damaged in this sort of fight.

Koenji watched the video feed of their team talking in the briefing room. The man in the motorcycle helmet, Izuku Midoriya, was doing most of the talking, his hands moving animatedly as Ensetsu Todoroki nodded. The third team member, Risou Kakuyama, was not as engaged, and Koenji made a note of this.

"The paperwork also says the kid's thirteen," said Kinugashima, conversationally, crinkling her nose.

"Kinugashima," said Koenji, not looking at his subordinate. "Focus on the relevant information, please."

"Yes, sir." Kinugashima pulled her face into a mask of flawless professionalism, turning back to her screen.

"He's got a pro sponsoring him, he's not gonna be bad," said Okuwa, adjusting the instrumentation.

"Who knows?" Kinugashima shrugged. "He's a legacy kid after all, and Burnin used to work under Endeavour. I mean, the first Endeavour."

Koenji was about to reprimand both of them when Okuwa frowned. "What's going on with the old guy's body temperature? He's running hot."

"How hot?" Kinugashima pushed a non-existent strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes on the display.

"I dunno, this is only a surface reading, but about thirty eight Celsius?"

"Eh, that's not too dangerous," Kinugashima squinted at the display. "Could be his quirk. Paperwork says he was quirkless until recently."

"A late bloomer." Koenji took a note on his clipboard, pen quiet against the official headed paper, moustache stroking itself thoughtfully. "I'll have medical take a look at him when we debrief. Make sure it's not anything infectious."

The gate opened, and their team stepped forward into the arena.

"Holy shit, look at that guy _go_." Okuwa swore, as the man, Midoriya, shot forward. Behind him, the Todoroki kid was using his quirk, the temperature profile cameras showing the air around him shift to red, then white. Okuwa kept on top of it, adjusting the temperature range until the top of the scale sat around five hundred Celsius, but Koenji's focus was on the helmed man.

Koenji pursed his lips. Did the man have an unreported speed quirk? Misrepresenting a candidate's quirk would be grounds for disqualification. "Kinugashima, can you get that on playback please?"

"That guy is fast." Kinugashima's movements were smooth and competent as she brought the footage up on a secondary display for Koenji, parallel with the live footage. "But the computer says it's within normal human parameters."

"Sir?" Okuwa called Koenji's attention to his live display. "The precognition quirk kid just lay down and gave up."

He watched as Midoriya choked out his opponent. It was curious that the boy with the premonition quirk had chosen to surrender rather than fight- Koenji had seen it before a few times, mostly when the quirk user knew they were hopelessly outmatched and wanted to avoid pain. He made a note to liaise with the other team's examiners after the match- that wasn't a great attitude to see from a hero.

"The emitters are going for the other two," Okuwa commented, briskly switching their perspective to focus on the two teenagers. Koenji noted the Todoroki boy's posture, his pinpoint control of his quirk as he raised the temperature in the area and deflected the enemy's attack. The perfect circle of untouched ground around him. Seeing that, it was easier to understand to see why a hero agency had chosen to sponsor him.

Midoriya shot in from the side, with the same peak-of-human speed he'd shown a few seconds previously, planting a foot into the chest of one of the grounded teenagers and kicking him into a wall. The wall cracked with the force, dust rising.

"Within human parameters?"

"Ah-" Okuwa swallowed. "Just about, sir."

Kanugashima rested her chin on her knuckles. "Did you want to call it?"

Koenji considered. Between the high-powered emitter type quirk from the Todoroki kid and the physical dominance demonstrated by Midoriya, the Shiketsu candidates were heavily overmatched. Any other team at the exam would face a similar predicament, he suspected.

But calling the match too early would feel unfair, and they would have to deal with the Shiketsu teachers. No, he decided. Calling the match would cause more trouble than it prevented.

Koenji's moustache wiggled. "Let it play out," he huffed finally, eyes on the screen.

* * *

Midoriya watched Todoroki leave, his white cape sweeping behind him. He wanted to go after him, but what could he say? What right did he possibly have, to dictate how the man dealt with his own family?

"Poor kid," Uraraka murmured, low enough that only Midoriya could hear.

Midoriya nodded, watching the door swing on its hinges.

Ensetsu had turned away from his uncle, walking over to where the pro hero Burnin was sitting.

"Are you going to be in trouble?" Risou asked, following him.

"With my mother?" Ensetsu raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry about it. She's probably going to have a long discussion with me about my future. There will be a presentation and then a quiz afterwards." Ensetsu's mouth quirked. "Maybe even an essay."

Risou looked sympathetic. "I think I'd rather be grounded."

"Maybe."

"Mr Midoriya?" An official with a clipboard stood at Midoriya's shoulder. "If you could come through to the examination room for the interview portion of the test? And Ms Uraraka, as Midoriya's sponsor, we'll be questioning you too, in a second room."

* * *

The examiner stood as Midoriya entered the room. He stood a little below average height, and greying, his hair parted to the side and a luxurious handlebar moustache on his upper lip. They bowed to each other. "My name's Isuke Koenji," said the examiner. "And I'm the chief examiner here. If you could take a seat, we can begin."

"Thank you," said Midoriya, putting his helmet on the ground at his feet as he sat. The chief examiner was interviewing him? He hoped the man couldn't see how nervous he was, the sweat accumulating on his back or the knot in his stomach.

Koenji's stare was impassive, revealing nothing. "On the table you will find a lie detector device," he said, with a gesture. The device he indicated was a small box made of black plastic, a hole in the front. "This will monitor your vitals as we conduct the interview. If you could insert your finger, we'll go through some baseline questions."

Midoriya did as instructed, the device's grip on his finger firm as Koenji asked him for the data he'd put on his entrance forms- his name, his date of birth, his blood type and his home address. After that, Koenji asked more factual questions, about hero laws and regulations. These might have seemed difficult to a high school student, but Midoriya had spent years working in a hero agency, and many of them were second nature. Midoriya answered to the best of his ability, until finally the examiner seemed satisfied.

Koenji shifted in his seat, and Midoriya half expected him to announce that the interview was over. "Tell me," said Koenji. "Mr Midoriya, what is a hero? What ideals should a hero support?"

It was a surprisingly open-ended question. What sort of answer was the examner expecting? Midoriya blinked. For a second he was back in his apartment, talking to Himiko as he cooked. Then as now his answers came to him. Even hopeless, even grieving, he had never doubted his ideals.

"Saving people," Midoriya said. "Being a hero is about saving people. Saving everyone."

Koenji noted down something and nodded. "What separates a hero from a vigilante?"

"Respect for the law and co-operation with the authorities," Midoriya answered, frowning. Was this a standard part of the exam, or was Koenji asking him these questions because he was suspicious of him?

"Tell me, have you ever read Destro's book?"

Midoriya swallowed. Destro had been a villain, the founder of the Liberation movement. Reading a book written by one of the century's most notorious villains during his time in Tartarus was something that the Hero Association probably viewed in a dim light, but his finger was in a lie detector. "I have," he said. "When I was at university."

The examiner nodded, noting down his answer. "Not many candidates admit to that," he said. "But statistically, most people have read the book. What did you think of it?"

Was this really still part of the exam? Midoriya racked his brain for details of the book. It had been banned at the time, and Fumiko had bought him a copy from one of her friends. Yotsubashi's prose had been loaded with emotion, almost breathless, hardly surprising for an author who had killed himself shortly after writing it. But the core of it had been relentlessly logical. People suffered, Yotsubashi argued, because their fundamental natures were denied. Just like a man with a fish quirk needed to keep himself hydrated, the argument went, a man with a flame quirk needed to be allowed to burn.

"I think the author wanted a world where people were treated fairly," said Midoriya. "But he wanted to achieve that by entirely upending our society."

"And that's a bad thing?" his examiner prompted.

"I believe so," said Midoriya. "Our current system isn't perfect, but that doesn't warrant ripping everything up. And Yotsubashi supported the idea of violent revolution, which would hurt lots of people. If he really wanted that sort of change for the good of everybody, he would have gone through legal channels. The Diet, or-"

"Alright." Koenji raised a hand, and Midoriya shut his mouth. Had he said too much? "Do you believe that relaxing the laws around quirk use lead to a fairer society?"

"I don't," said Midoriya.

"No? Why not?"

"Sir," said Midoriya. "I spent my life up until this point believing I was quirkless."

* * *

The interview could have gone better, Midoriya considered, as he entered into the third and final stage of the exam, the search and rescue, after a brief medical examination. There was no sign of Risou or Ensetsu, but he recognised the golden eyed Rito in his group of ten, and the teen gave him a nod of recognition. Their scenario was a coastal town destroyed by tsunami, houses reduced to matchsticks in knee-deep standing water.

_There are people in this world who use their quirks to hurt others. If Yotsubashi's proposals were implemented, people like- _Midoriya had hesitated there_ -the quirkless people would have no defence._

Koenji had seemed unconvinced. _Yet the author argues that quirk users need free reign._

_A quirk users' right to freedom doesn't trump everybody's safety,_ he had answered.

_Is that your final answer?_ The examiner had asked, and Midoriya had nodded. But he wasn't sure if it was the right answer.

The klaxon sounded for the scenario to start, and the teenagers around Midoriya immediately descended into squabbling.

"Alright," Midoriya called, raising his voice. "Listen to me, all of you."

There was silence as the teens turned to him, the only adult in the group, falling silent. Midoriya cleared his throat. "Rito here has a Premonition quirk, but he needs line of sight. One of you or you-" he said, nodding to the two UA students whose quirks allowed them to fly. "Take him up high so that he can see the entire area- he should be able to predict any structures about to collapse so that we can prioritise them."

He half expected the teenagers to ignore him, but to his surprise the winged girl he'd nodded to saluted and gestured for Rito to climb on her back. The others looked at Midoriya expectantly, and he started giving orders. He paired the boy with the Bloodhound quirk and the girl with the Fireworks quirk to sniff out people trapped in already collapsed buildings and summon others, and split the other teams similarly, pairing himself with Rito when the boy returned.

Midoriya didn't have a quirk well-suited to this sort of situation, but the fake masonry and timber felt light in his hands as Rito directed him to the survivors, and he carried the volunteers who were roleplaying as _man with broken rib_ or _lady with concussion_ to their triage centre, until finally their time was up and the klaxon sounded again.

He took off his helmet and sat down in the mud, exhaustion hitting his body as the adrenaline receded.

If he'd thought hard about it, he could have come up with a better answer to Koenji's final question. Perhaps he should have refuted Yotsubashi's central thesis, and argued that quirk users _were_ free.

Next to him, Rito climbed onto a piece of timber roofing that jutted awkwardly from the ground. The two of them hadn't talked, he realised, except about the task at hand.

"Sorry my team beat you," said Midoriya, quietly. An elderly volunteer tottered past, wearing a sash that read_ five year old with broken neck and spine_.

"Yeah, well, thanks for not showboating," said Rito stiffly, adjusting his Shiketsu cap as he stared into the middle distance. "None of us were badly injured, and that meant we won our next match." He frowned, looking down at Midoriya. "Congratulations, by the way."

"What?" Midoriya looked around him, and scrambled back to his feet as he spotted a flash of pink- Uraraka walking towards him from the edge of the exam area. Rito's quirk was very short-term.

Uraraka was grinning as she approached, her hands behind her back. The old examiner, Koenji, trailed behind her, looking decidedly more serious.

"Mr Midoriya," Koenji began, his moustache bristle-stiff. "I must say that I had my reservations about your candidacy. But you strike me as a thoughtful and honourable man, and there can be no doubts as to your other qualifications."

"Thank you, examiner." Midoriya gave a bow and Koenji handed him his license. The little piece of plastic was somehow heavier than any of the beams he'd moved in the exercise, and he kept his head down in a bow as he felt tears prickle in his eyes.

"Now," said Uraraka, smiling broadly as she put an arm around his shoulders. "Now we get to put you to work."


	11. Chapter 11

Himiko wasn't waiting on the gantry when Midoriya returned. He stared on the space on the railings where she liked to sit, half-expecting her to appear. Term time had started again for the local universities. Maybe she had class?

Midoriya went inside. He could tell Himiko he had passed the next time he saw her. Maybe even show her his license, though he doubted she'd be very impressed- it was something sixteen-year-olds could do after all.

He showered and changed from the clothes he'd worn to the exam and into some fresh gym gear, unwrapping his knuckles. Still no Himiko- she was probably seeing friends.

He headed out on a run along one of his usual routes, down past the convenience store, and down by the canal. As far as nature went, Jakku didn't have much to offer, a few children's parks and whatever people grew in baskets in front of their houses, but the canal was an exception to that, grass growing lush and green either side, even as the water flowed oily and full of silt, polluted from the nearby industrial wards. Pretty much the only thing the canal had to recommend it was solitude- Midoriya could often go the length of the run without seeing another soul. But tonight, he saw one person.

Was that? Midoriya squinted, his run slowing to a walk. On the bench ahead sat a tall, slim figure, greying hair streaked with yellow. It looked like Sir Nighteye. But what would Sir Nighteye be doing in a place like this?

"Sasaki?" he called, not expecting a response.

The older man looked up, the low sun reflected gold in his glasses. "Midoriya," he said. "It's good to see you again."

"I passed the exam."

"I never had any doubt that you would," said Nighteye, simply, and Midoriya felt a swell of something like pride in his chest. "But I'm afraid this isn't a social visit."

"You were waiting for me?"

"People might be watching your apartment," said Nighteye, not denying Midoriya's question. "And this is a matter requiring utmost discretion."

Midoriya stepped closer to the seated man, lowering his voice. "A secret mission?"

Nighteye nodded seriously. "The other night, you might remember that Mirio feared that the Liberation Army sought to plant a spy in our ranks."

"He thought that could be me," said Midoriya.

"I believe the truth to be worse," said Nighteye, looking down momentarily, his expression wry. "There have been too many occasions on which the Liberation movement has pre-empted or predicted our movements, information that only members of the top ten would have access to."

"You're saying there's already a spy," said Midoriya.

Nighteye was silent, but he nodded slowly.

"That's terrible," said Midoriya. "We need to tell-"

"Stop," said Nighteye. "_Think_, Midoriya. If the spy knows that someone is looking for them, they will work harder to cover their tracks. And suspicion will sow discord amongst the heroes."

Midoriya looked down at his shoes. "What exactly do you want me to do?" He narrowed his eyes, pushing his hair back from his forehead. "I'm not even a full hero yet. What can I do that you can't?"

"You have a bond with at least one of the top ten," said Nighteye. "Two, if I'm not mistaken. You have their trust. That's closer than most people could ever hope to get. Get close to them. Find out all you can."

"You want me to spy on _Kacchan_?" Midoriya clawed at his face. "He can't be the traitor. I've known him since we were four years old." He looked up, shaking his head. "You have no idea what you're asking."

"Not spy," said Nighteye. "Investigate, and report back to me."

Midoriya ran the rest of the length of his route, Nighteye's warnings seeming to clamour in his head with every step. A spy, in the top ten, someone who was selling out the plans of the heroes. Setting them up to fail. He sped up, practically sprinting, his lungs aching. He thought of Kacchan, back in middle school, each strike of his feet against the pavement the strike of one of his bullies. Kacchan's voice was in his ears, telling him he was just a stupid _Deku_. A quirkless piece of shit who should give up and throw himself from the school roof if he knew what was good for him. But that had been middle school, Midoriya reasoned. Plenty of kids were terrible in middle school, and besides, Kacchan was a hero now. When Midoriya got back home there was a message on his phone from Todoroki.

_did you want to go to a bar or something_

Could Todoroki be the spy? Midoriya bit his lip as he stared at the message. Surely Todoroki wouldn't associate with the Liberation movement. But his quirk was strong, and he came from a family of strong quirk users. If Yotsubashi's quirk revolution actually happened, Todoroki would be near the top of the pile. He couldn't afford to rule it out.

Carefully, Midoriya typed out a reply, suggesting a hole-in-the-wall in a nearby district that people from Aoyama's hero agency sometimes used for outings. Todoroki agreed in his usual terse manner, and they arranged a time.

He changed again, this time into clothes that were less obviously ratty gym wear, his shirt a little tight across the chest. Had he gained weight? Midoriya ran his fingers through his hair and squinted at the half day-old green stubble on his chin before leaving the house and getting a train to meet Todoroki. He hadn't been downtown since he had lost his job, Midoriya realised as he walked past the neon storefronts. Hadn't had a reason to. What would he say to his former coworkers if he met them? Ms Yamagawa? He would buy them a drink, he decided. It had hardly been their fault he had been fired, after all, and they were probably picking up his work for him in his absence.

The rain started up when Midoriya was halfway to his destination, making the paving beneath his feet mirror slick, reflecting the vertical signage from above him in yellow and pink. Midoriya covered his head with his arms, dashing from covered awning to covered awning as the people around him on the street opened umbrellas to protect themselves from the rain. By the time he got to the bar, Midoriya estimated he would be soaked through. He scanned the street, looking for a better path, when he spotted Todoroki. The pro hero stood head and shoulders above most of the people, and his two-tone hair was uncovered, which only made him easier to spot. Midoriya waved.

"Here." Todoroki stepped towards him through the crowd, raising a black umbrella, easily big enough for two or three people.

Midoriya stepped under the shelter, grateful. "Thanks. How did you know I'd be out here?"

Todoroki shrugged as best he could while holding a large umbrella. "Call it a heroic instinct," he said, eyes not quite meeting Midoriya's. "My father always said that the first rule of being a hero is that one should be prepared for disaster in any situation."

They walked to the bar together, and Midoriya wondered why Todoroki had come to find him rather than wait inside. Some people stared, but no-one stopped Todoroki or asked him for an autograph, which was an improvement on the scene at the car-park that morning. Inside, the bar was much as Midoriya remembered it, dimly lit with wood panelling, three tables and the bar itself. The bartender was a lanky man named Katsugawa, whose quirk gave him excessively greasy skin.

Katsugawa nodded to Midoriya as he came in, his small eyes flashing with recognition as he noticed Todoroki. Midoriya stared at him hard, daring him to make a comment, but the man gave a small shrug instead, as if to say _money's all the same to me_. Midoriya ordered them drinks as Todoroki stood behind him, a small frown on his face, and they sat side by side at the bar.

"I don't drink much," he said, as Midoriya slid him a beer.

"Ah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed. You asked to meet in a bar, so-" Midoriya pressed his fingertips together.

"That's okay." Todoroki stared down at his drink, his expression softening a little. "You know, I wasn't sure what we would do to celebrate, but drinking seems appropriate, doesn't it?"

"I think so." Midoriya nodded. "Thank you for inviting me out. And for everything."

Todoroki stiffened a little, sniffing the beer before raising it to his lips. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to see you get your license," he said. "I wanted to be there to congratulate you with Uraraka."

"You were dealing with your family stuff," guessed Midoriya.

Todoroki nodded. "Yeah."

"How did your sister take it?"

"She was pretty angry, I think." Todoroki frowned, taking another sip of beer and pulling a face. "Burnin's invoking a law that was designed to let animals with quirks like high specs become heroes. Says it means Ensetsu doesn't need parental consent. We're getting a lawyer."

Midoriya looked up at the television in the corner as it showed an advert for fruit juice, idols dressed as fruits dancing on a beach. "Ensetsu's a good kid," he said.

Todoroki's gaze was level. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's determined. He already found a sponsor that let him apply. Even if you stopped him now, you'd only have so long before he got into a hero course."

"I want him to have a normal childhood," said Todoroki. He looked at Midoriya with a quizzical expression. "Is that so hard to ask?"

"I-" Midoriya paused, thinking of all the times that people had put him down, told him to bury his dreams at that age, and how much it had hurt. "All I'm saying is you should hear him out. I know he's just a kid, but that doesn't mean you get to control everything he does."

Todoroki's stare was intense, and Midoriya regretted trying to advocate for Ensetsu. All Todoroki was doing was looking out for his nephew. What right did Midoriya have to interfere?

"He has no idea what he wants," snapped Todoroki. "What it entails, the costs-" There was a wave of cold from the pro hero that frosted both of their beer glasses, and Todoroki pinched his nose, breathing in deeply. He'd only had one beer, but his cheeks were already flushed. "Dammit," he muttered, and the place warmed a degree or two. "Can't even control my quirk."

"I'm sorry-" stammered Midoriya, wide-eyed, but Todoroki shook his head.

"You're right, though. He's not a bad kid." Todoroki started morosely on his second beer. "I just wish he wanted to be a lawyer or a dentist or something."

The television in the corner changed to a talkshow- the host Minoru Mineta was rating female pro heroes according to breast size, the camera panning over his bobbly purple goatee as he talked, before the image switched to a close-up of Nejire-chan's torso.

"Didn't you go to school with that guy?" asked Midoriya, frowning. There had been a short, purple haired guy at the UA entrance exam, but he didn't recall what had happened to him.

Todoroki was glaring at the screen. "One of my classmates died to save that purple piece of shit," he said, with an angry sip of his beer. "And he didn't even become a hero. Not that it matters- she was a hundred times the hero he would have been."

"Oh," said Midoriya, not sure what to say. What were you even supposed to say, when someone told you something like that? "Did you want another drink?"

Todoroki stared at him for a second, his face shifting from anger to his usual neutral expression, then softening a little further, in something that might have been surprise, as he fixed Midoriya with his eyes. "Okay."

Todoroki drank with a grim sort of determination, his already pink face turning steadily more crimson. Midoriya matched him, feeling a warm sort of buzz come over him a few drinks in, enveloping him like a cosy jumper. Midoriya got them another round, discreetly asking Katsugawa to change the television channel when Todoroki kept glaring at the presenter.

Todoroki probably wasn't the spy, he decided. The man was powerful, and a little socially awkward, but it was hard to imagine him hiding something. And he probably didn't think about people hiding things from him, either, Midoriya thought guiltily.

"I've not signed the divorce papers yet," he admitted, five drinks in.

"What?" Todoroki stared at him, mismatched eyes narrowed.

Midoriya hung his head. "I'm sorry. I know I promised you I would. But I wasn't ready-"

Todoroki slipped from his seat and grabbed his jacket. For a moment Midoriya thought he was going to storm out, but instead he stood there, swaying slightly. "Come on," said Todoroki, stiffly.

"I-" Midoriya frowned. "Where are we going?"

"We're going," said Todoroki, firmly. "To your place. And you're going to sign those papers. Tonight."

It was insane. "Tonight?" Midoriya repeated, feeling weak.

"Yeah." Todoroki nodded. "You need a witness on the form anyway, right?"

"Ah. Yeah." Midoriya hadn't even thought about that. He checked the time. "If we hurry, we can catch the last train back to Jakku."

"We could travel with my quirk," offered Todoroki.

Midoriya looked at him, red faced and leaning against the bar to keep his balance. "I don't think that's a great idea."

Todoroki looked a little sheepish. "Alright," he said.

They made it in time for the last train, quiet save for a few inebriated salarymen, and Midoriya found a dark corner to hide Todoroki. The number four hero could hardly be seen in this state in public, and Todoroki's appearance was nothing if not distinctive.

"If I vomit," said Todoroki, quietly, as Midoriya sat him down. "I should freeze it so we can take it with us. It's the socially responsible thing to do."

There was a metallic thunk from the roof, and Midoriya looked up. "What was that?"

Todoroki leaned his head back against the window, his fine hair clinging to the glass and his eyes half-lidded. "Sounded like part of the train to me. It's probably nothing."

Midoriya looked at the ceiling of their carriage, the electronic displays above the luggage racks shifting to show an advert for Dynam-O's, Kacchan's face leering down at them twenty times. "It didn't sound like nothing."

"Mm." Todoroki rubbed his face with his hand, his long legs splayed carelessly from his seat as the train's engines started up, the lights of the platform slipping out of view. "You were attacked the other night and now you're more vigilant than usual. S'normal."

Their journey was quiet save for the noise of the train and the rain against the windows, Todoroki napping until they pulled into Midoriya's local station.

They walked from the station pressed shoulder to shoulder under the umbrella, partly to keep Todoroki steady and partly to brace against the wind. The salarymen on the train had stayed on when they left, and they were alone on the residential streets, most of the houses dark or with a single golden window shining out onto the street. Midoriya couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched, like more Liberation Army soldiers were about to spring out from the darkness. He hadn't felt like this since the night he'd died, and he'd been on plenty of night-time runs. But then he hadn't been out drinking since he died. Maybe Todoroki was right.

"We're here," said Midoriya, as they came to the steps that lead up to his apartment. Todoroki stopped to lean against the railings, stumbling.

"We have to do stairs?" he complained, face shifting to something close to a pout. "You didn't say anything about stairs, Midoriya."

"You're the one that insisted that we go immediately to my apartment," said Midoriya coolly, but he took Todoroki's arm, putting it over his shoulders. "C'mon, I'll help you up."

Midoriya half-carried the pro hero up the stairs to the gantry outside his apartment, pausing to fish in his jacket for keys and open his front door.

"Welcome to my home," he said.

Todoroki looked around as he stepped inside, his gaze pausing on the All Might doll on the side. "I need the toilet," he said, very quietly.

Midoriya pointed him to the bathroom, and Todoroki stumbled in, closing the door behind him. Midoriya picked up the form from where he had discarded it, and turned it over in his hands, rubbing the ink with his thumbs.

"Your place is tiny," said Todoroki as he emerged from the bathroom, drying his hands on a handkerchief from his pocket. "I didn't know they made places this small."

"Plenty of people live in places like this," said Midoriya, matter-of-factly. He was pretty sure Todoroki didn't mean the comment as a snub. He raised the paper, and Todoroki stopped dead in his tracks." You ready to witness me?"

Todoroki inclined his head. "Okay."

Midoriya put the paper on the table, smoothing it out with his scarred palm, and Todoroki took a seat, watching him intently. It felt like an anticlimax. His life as a husband ended. His life as a hero began. As soon as the tip of his pen formed the first character of his name, he knew that it was the right thing to do. That he'd already made his choice, years ago, when Fumiko had asked him to stop chasing after his dream.

He dated the document and pushed it across the table. "Are you sober enough to sign your name?"

Todoroki rolled his eyes and plucked the pen from Midoriya's fingers. "We're about to find out."

There was a crashing sound nearby, reverberating through the thin walls of the apartment. Todoroki stopped, his pen above the paper. "What was that?"

"I don't know," said Midoriya, getting to his feet. "But that didn't sound like nothing."

"No," Todoroki agreed.

"Sounds like it was one of the neighbours," said Midoriya, grabbing a torch from a cupboard.

"I'll come with you."

"No." Midoriya shook his head. "You're three sheets to the wind."

Todoroki looked him in the eye, and signed his name on the form with a flourish. "Sober enough to witness this," he said, before he stood up, knocking his chair over as he did.

Midoriya sighed. There was clearly no discouraging Todoroki. The pro hero followed him as he put on his shoes and went outside to investigate. The rain had abated to a trickle, dripping from the rails of the gantry, and Midoriya shone his torch around. There was no sign of any disturbance, no skulking figure in the dark. He walked the length of the gantry, looking for signs of disturbance, his light passing over the nameplate by each door.

The noise was coming from Himiko's apartment, a steady thud. "Himiko," Midoriya breathed, walking to her door. There were no lights on inside, no light leaking through the crack under the door, but the thudding continued. "Himiko!" he called. "Are you okay?"

There was another thud, and a woman's voice, muffled, shouting something, or trying to. Whatever it was, she wasn't okay. Gritting his teeth, Midoriya lined himself up with the door as Himiko had showed him and delivered a kick to the door. It burst open, and Midoriya stumbled through.

He'd never been in Himiko's apartment. Mail flyers and leaflets were piled on the floor around the door, weeks and weeks worth. Was she a hoarder? It didn't matter, Midoriya, decided. She was his friend. He scanned around with his torch, calling for her.

The main room, a mirror image of Midoriya's apartment, looked like a bomb had hit it. Fast food was scattered everywhere, trash bags tied up and stacked high. It smelled like rotting food and waste. Behind him, Todoroki wrinkled his nose.

"Himiko?" Midoriya called, and there was another thud, weaker this time. Midoriya pointed his flashlight down, to the source of the noise. A wardrobe had fallen on its side on the floor, scattering the trash around it. That must have been the crashing noise. Midoriya put down his torch, leaving it in the trash by his feet as he grabbed the wardrobe, pushing it back upright in a single, easy motion. He called her name again as he opened it.

His neighbour Himiko was inside, naked save for her underwear, and gagged and tied, her dark hair lank around her face. Her eyes fluttered open, and then closed again, her breathing shallow.

Midoriya swore, turning back to Todoroki as he reached into his pocket for something to cut her bonds. Her wrists were bruised and bleeding, from where she had struggled against them. "Call an ambulance."

Himiko was pale and small in the stretcher the paramedics wrapped her in as they carried her down the stairs. They followed her to the hospital, Todoroki on the phone to a police contact the whole way. Midoriya could only understand snatches of what the medical staff were saying, things about dehydration and blood loss. A blood bag was attached to the girl's arm, and a mask on her face. When they arrived she was wheeled off through swinging double doors, leaving the two of them standing uselessly in the waiting room.

Midoriya sat in one of the grey plastic chairs as Todoroki went to the vending machine, coming back with two cans of iced coffee. His face was still red from alcohol, and his aim was somewhere to the side of Midoriya's head. Midoriya caught it anyway.

"I couldn't save them," said Todoroki, his voice low.

"You couldn't save who?" asked Midoriya.

"Two of the people, in the attack the other day. You asked me about it. Both women, one of them had a child." Todoroki's voice was pained. "I wasn't fast enough."

Midoriya wasn't sure what to say. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I- I thought you should know. In case your friend-" Todoroki looked down, face flushed and lip curling as his words spilled out. "I couldn't save Iida-"

"Ingenium?"

"His younger brother. He was in my class." Todoroki paused. "We were patrolling in the same district when Stain attacked him."

Midoriya listened, eyes wide, his fingers curled around the cold metal of the can as Todoroki spoke.

"It never gets any easier. No matter how many people you save, the ones that you didn't-" he paused, shaking his head. "I didn't save Ashido, or Yaoyorozu," he continued, bitterness seeping into his voice. "I couldn't even save my father. You can't save everyone, Midoriya. Even if you do everything you can. That's the real first rule of being a hero."

Midoriya looked up at Todoroki's face- his flushed cheeks, his serious eyes, and felt a tightness in his own throat as he thought of Himiko, sitting on his sofa, her knees tucked up against her chin.

"That's probably not very helpful, is it?" said Todoroki, wryly.

"No, I-" Midoriya stood, raising his hand, reaching up, and patted the top of Todoroki's head. "I probably needed to hear that."

Todoroki looked down at him, his expression faintly surprised. A little frost escaped his lips, and Midoriya drew back quickly.

Todoroki's phone buzzed, breaking their reverie. He stared at it for a second, frowning as he scrolled through messages. He paused, and it looked like he read something a second time.

"I just heard back from my detective friend," said Todoroki. He frowned. "I asked him to take a look at the apartment for me. Look for clues as to what happened."

"He found something?"

"It's your neighbour, Fuchigawa," said Todoroki. "The one in the emergency room right now. Her first name's not Himiko."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N- sorry for the delay folks, been travelling a lot and not writing as much as I should.**

**ETA- Thanks to the user readme-silly for correcting my brain bork**

* * *

"Himiko Toga?" Midoriya felt like his jaw was going to dislocate if his mouth opened any further, so he closed it. He swallowed. "You think Himiko Toga was impersonating my neighbour? Himiko Toga, one of the seven Divisional commanders of the Liberation Army?"

Of course he'd heard of her- who hadn't? The Liberation movement had even released a documentary about her, and how she'd been isolated because of her quirk. She'd been on the television too, when the government had ordered its ill-fated crackdown on the militant wing of the Liberation movement. She'd been there before the TV news cut the live broadcast, covered in blood and laughing as she switched from form to form.

Todoroki nodded slowly, brushing a little of his two-toned hair from his forehead. "That's what I said."

From what the doctors had told them, Hanako Fuchigawa, the girl currently in intensive care, hadn't left the wardrobe in her apartment next to Midoriya's for the last few weeks. Someone had been impersonating her. Who that was, they didn't know for sure, but Todoroki seemed fairly certain that it had been Toga. There weren't many other people with a quirk that could do something like that, and Fuchigawa had been missing blood, which Toga needed for her transformations. That much made sense.

"Why would she tell me her real first name?" Midoriya shook his head, struggling to reconcile the girl he'd spent the last few weeks with and his image of the homicidal Toga. "Did she want us to know who she was?"

"I've read her psych profile," said Todoroki. "She often goes off-mission on a whim, chasing objectives of her own making rather than following orders from the head office."

"You think she did this- nearly killed Fuchigawa- on a whim?"

"It's a working theory," said Todoroki, his voice flat. He rolled his shoulders, as if easing a cramp from his neck. "She might have seen your fight with the Liberation soldiers who were attacking my house somehow, and decided she was interested in you."

"It's too callous," Midoriya said. "Locking someone up, drugging them, taking their face, for what? For fun?" It was too evil.

Todoroki's eyebrows quirked. "Did you sleep with her?"

Midoriya stared at him. "Huh?"

"I mean-" Todoroki made a motion with his hands. "Did you have se-"

"No!" Midoriya rubbed his forehead. "I get you, but she was young- I mean, she was impersonating someone young, and I'm still married-" he groaned. "No, I didn't have sex with her."

"You were on first-name terms, though," said Todoroki, bluntly.

Midoriya looked away, embarrassed. "She just turned up at my apartment. I made her dinner a few times, we sparred a bit, she bought me snacks. I figured she was a bored college student on break." Midoriya stared at the display of informational leaflets across from him in the waiting room, not taking in the writing. That whole time, when he'd been cavorting with Himiko, his poor neighbour had been trapped in that closet, tied up, maybe drugged. And he hadn't done a thing to save her. He was an idiot. A gullible idiot. "I should have noticed. Been more alert. Maybe then there wouldn't be a girl in intensive care right now."

"And maybe there would. Maybe she'd be at the bottom of a river somewhere." Todoroki shrugged. "She'll be okay. We saved her."

Midoriya stared at him. "Yeah," he allowed. "I guess." If they had really saved Fuchigawa, why did he feel so bad about it?

"Did the impostor try to recruit you? Try to indoctrinate you?"

"No. If anything, she was more interested in what I had to say," said Midoriya. "I didn't get the impression she was trying to change my mind, more like she was trying to get to know me. I don't know why she would do that, though."

"You're Bakugou's childhood friend, and you were at my house. Maybe she saw you as a way to get to one of us."

"Maybe," Midoriya agreed, slumping in his chair. "But I hadn't seen Kacchan in years. He must have closer friends that she could target."

"I wouldn't count on it," said Todoroki, his eyes narrowing. "Being a hero is a lonely business."

* * *

They stayed in the hospital waiting room, Todoroki sleeping seated in his chair and Midoriya too agitated to sleep, until a nurse came with news- Fuchigawa was stable, but unconscious. Todoroki's police detective contact arrived, a grizzled old man by the name of Tsukauchi, and posted police constables as guards outside her room. It seemed like there was nothing more they could do.

Midoriya stood and stretched, brushing crumbs of vending machine food from himself before reaching into his pocket for his wallet. He had enough cash for a train ride home.

Todoroki looked at him with narrowed eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Going home," Midoriya replied simply.

"You can't go back there." Todoroki looked at Midoriya as if he were stupid. "The Liberation Army know your location."

"What are they going to do? Kill me?" Midoriya's response came out more sarcastic than he intended. Deep down he knew Todoroki had a point.

"If you died in that apartment you could set the entire block ablaze. Fire spreads… easily in places like that." Todoroki looked pained. "And you're not immune to getting kidnapped."

* * *

An agency car took them to Todoroki's mansion, Todoroki holding a block of ice to his forehead as they drove. Midoriya felt a spike of anxiety as the hospital slid out of view, though he knew rationally that there wasn't anything else they could do to help Fuchigawa. The police were there. The doctors were there.

"You want one of the bedrooms, or the gym again?" Todoroki asked, snapping Midoriya to the present. The flush had mostly left his cheeks, and his voice was gruff.

"I've not caught fire in my sleep yet."

"Okay." Todoroki's eyes flashed amusement briefly, despite the circumstances. "Just so you know, this house is over a hundred years old. My sister would be very upset if it burned down."

"I'll do my best," said Midoriya, with a slight bow, and Todoroki smiled.

* * *

Midoriya woke on a futon in one of Todoroki's guest rooms, the panels on the walls and the tatami beneath him mercifully unscorched, though the smell of incense within the house was strong. Though he'd not drunk too much, the morning still had the dizzying quality of having had only an hour or two of sleep as he made small talk with Todoroki's mother over breakfast, refusing the natto she repeatedly offered him. Midoriya dreaded explaining the events of the previous night, but Todoroki's mother, Rei, seemed expert at avoiding the topic of heroics, instead asking about Midoriya's time at university and talking about her daughter's job as a headteacher. Todoroki himself didn't seem in the mood for talking, dark crescents under his eyes as he took long sips of his tea, so Midoriya found himself filling the silence until finally it was time for them to go. He followed Todoroki outside, down the winding path to the gates, where another van was waiting, Permafrost's fractured snowflake emblazoned on the side.

"Uravity Agency is on our route to Permafrost," said Todoroki, as they got into the back. He'd changed into his costume, adding a blue-tinted visor to hide the bloodshot in his eyes. "We'll drop you at the door."

"Thanks," Midoriya breathed. "Does Uravity know what happened? With my neighbour?"

Todoroki nodded. "I thought she should know, in case Toga decides to come after you while you're working." He glanced up, his eyes unreadable behind the tinted glass. "I'll tell you if I hear anything from the hospital, but Tsukauchi said Fuchigawa's condition is unlikely to change for a few days."

"So don't expect anything. Got it." Midoriya closed his eyes for a second, until the motion of the van started to make him feel nauseous. "Hey, Todoroki-"

"Yes?"

Midoriya took a deep breath, the question threatening to catch in his throat. "How do you know I'm not Toga?"

Todoroki gave him an unimpressed stare. "Because," he said, with a gesture to his chest. "There's no knife sticking out of me right now. You had me in a-" he took a breath, breaking eye contact. "-a vulnerable state last night. There's no way a divisional commander of the Liberation Army wouldn't take advantage of that somehow."

* * *

Uravity's building was only slightly bigger than Can't Stop Sparkling, where Midoriya had worked for years. Both were about the size of a large department store, but the difference in status between the two heroes was evident from the moment Midoriya stepped through the door. Aoyama's staff had done the best they could with his limited budget, but the result had been frayed carpets and ageing paintwork, mirrors mounted on the walls to cover up peeling paint. Uravity's agency, by comparison, looked like it was straight out of some kind of lifestyle magazine. Tinted glass windows towered from every side of the entrance hall, a futuristic metal sculpture of a tree at the centre and low slung white couches at the periphery. Looking up, Midoriya could see that all the upper levels seemed to look out onto the space, a corridor of empty air all the way to the top, where a tiny square of sky was visible.

"Sir?" the receptionist, a young man, called. "Can I help you?"

"Ah, yeah-" Midoriya smiled as he approached the desk. "I'm the new intern. Uravity asked me to come by."

"Aren't you a bit old to be an intern?" The receptionist checked his screen, glancing from his monitor to Midoriya, and tilting his head as he confirmed his identity. "You're early," he said, finally. "Take a seat."

Midoriya apologised and headed for the couches.

He watched as the metal tree appeared to flower, pink-white buds forming along its smooth curving branches. The receptionist picked up the phone and talked to someone about a schedule as the flowers folded outwards until they fell, scattering to the ground and vanishing. Midoriya wondered if they were holograms as the cycle started again, the flowers white pinpoints.

"You look like shit," said Uraraka, from above him. "I like the stubble, though. Makes you look like you're acting in some sort of apocalypse movie."

Midoriya looked up to see the number two hero hanging upside down in the air a foot or so over his head. She smiled, and reflexively he returned the expression.

Uraraka raised a finger to her lips. "I was going to suggest we try your debut today, but no-one's going to want to see you looking like that." She rotated slowly, angling her feet towards the ground. "Though I suppose it's hardly surprising, given what happened."

"Am I in trouble?"

"No." Uraraka's feet hit the ground without a noise, and she raised her chin from her chest, clearing her hair from her face. "We'll just need to be careful."

"You've dealt with Toga before," Midoriya guessed.

"At UA," Uraraka said, her brown eyes fixing on the middle distance for a second, as if she was remembering something. "Though we've not had solid intelligence on her location for a long time now."

It was understandable, given that Toga could look like anyone.

"I'm sending you up the road to Lemillion," said Uraraka, making a fist and pressing it decisively into her palm. "You need to see Melissa anyway, and I promised her she could have you for the day when I didn't have a use for you. And I don't have a use for you, not looking like that."

"I'm sorry." Midoriya hung his head.

Uraraka wrinkled her nose. "You're lucky your ass is cute," she said. "Otherwise I'd have fired it already. Now get going." She left before Midoriya could get flustered, calling over a sidekick to escort him.

* * *

If anything, Lemillion agency was less flashy than the number two hero's, though the lobby contained a large machine, the purpose of which seemed to be to count up every time Lemillion saved somebody. An assistant came up to collect Midoriya, and he found himself descending in a lift, further than a basement level should be, and was escorted through three sets of security doors before he found himself in a large, white and grey space, its lighting panels reminiscent of those in the hospital. Melissa was there, working at an overcrowded desk, her stacks of papers a stark contrast to the clinical feel of the rest of the lab. Midoriya called a greeting as he approached.

Of the top heroes' inner circle, Melissa was the least likely to be an informant for the Liberation movement. She was quirkless, after all. The Liberation movement considered her the lowest of the low. Would someone like Melissa work for a movement that clearly despised her?

"Have a seat," she said, idly. She was dressed much like she had been the night Midoriya had first met her, with the addition of a knee-length white lab coat and pocket protector, her glasses swapped out for a version with flanges for eye protection. "I've got an assistant joining me today, but I wasn't expecting Ochako to let me have you so early."

"Assistant?" Midoriya echoed, and Melissa glanced at her wristwatch.

"She should be arriving now, in fact."

A girl, in her late teens or early twenties, burst from the door behind Midoriya, red faced and out of breath, and Midoriya spun to face her, half expecting an attack.

Like Melissa, the girl wore a lab coat over her clothes, but she had accented it with a pastel pink scarf. Her white hair was tied up in a messy bun, and a large golden horn curled from the right side of her forehead. Her face lit up when she saw Melissa, and the two women embraced tightly.

Melissa cleared her throat, releasing the white-haired girl. "Midoriya, please meet Eri Aizawa, also known as Rewind Girl. Eri, this is Izuku Midoriya, obviously."

"Aizawa? Like the old pro hero Eraserhead?" Midoriya asked. The man had been a teacher at UA when Midoriya had looked at attending.

Eri gave a sideways smile. "Yeah, that's my dad."

"How's he doing?" Melissa asked.

Eri shrugged. "Still insisting people call him No-eyes-awa. Other than that, he's getting on with things. He won't let me try fixing him until I've got my full medical license, though."

"You're training as a doctor?" Midoriya asked. "I thought you were a pro hero."

"I'm a pro hero, but I'm also a medical student." The girl smiled, and Midoriya felt as if the room was a little brighter for it.

"She's doing both. Like Recovery Girl did," Melissa explained.

"That's amazing," said Midoriya, staring at Eri. The pressure involved with of either set of training was enough to crush a lot of young people, let alone both.

"It's a lot of hard work," said Eri. "But at the end of it, I'll get to save people. And pay back everyone who ever saved me," she added, with a glance at Melissa.

"Alright," Melissa pushed her glasses up her nose, a little more businesslike than before. "Enough about my assistant's herculean workload. There's science to be done."

Melissa directed Midoriya to one of the pods that lined the walls of the room, and asked him to take off his shoes. The machines looked like something that had come straight off I-island, hardly surprising since Melissa had grown up there, the bundles of wires that sprouted from them as thick as Midoriya's arm.

"We're going to take some scans first," said Melissa. "This machine will measure height, weight, and give us some broadly accurate figures on your muscle mass and bone density."

"Do I need to undress?" Midoriya asked, with a nervous glance at the two women. The walls of the pod were transparent.

"The machine will account for your clothes," said Melissa, matter-of-factly, and Midoriya was grateful that she treated his question like a sensible one, rather than laughing at him or teasing him. "If anything goes wrong, there's a red button on the inside that will stop the measurement and let you out."

Midoriya stepped into the small chamber, and the glass door slid shut behind him, instantly muffling the background noises of the lab, the hum of coolant fans and the whirr of pumps all silenced. Midoriya could hear his heartbeat and his breath and nothing else, as Melissa gave him a thumbs up through the glass. Glancing down, he spotted the emergency release Melissa had mentioned, and it was some small comfort as the pressure in the chamber changed, enough to pop his ears. While he would survive any malfunction the chamber had, he had no desire to be trapped inside. The pressure reduced again, returning to normal, a green light shone as the glass slid open again.

Melissa and Eri were staring at the readout, Melissa scribbling frantically in her notebook. Midoriya joined them, peering over the top of Eri's head.

"That's not right-" Midoriya frowned at the number on the display, a good six centimetres more than the height listed on his driving license. The weight was more than he'd expected, too, by about ten kilos.

"I can measure you again," said Melissa. "But the result will be the same. My instruments are accurate."

Midoriya pressed his fingers together. "If you could?"

"No harm in a repeat measurement." Melissa shrugged, gesturing for Midoriya to get back in the chamber, and the process repeated, his ears taking less time to pop.

Midoriya stared at the result on the big screen, the same as before. Either Melissa's instruments were seriously out of calibration, or he was _bigger_ than he remembered. "This is taller and heavier than I was before my quirk," he said. Melissa smiled beatifically, as if she had been expecting the question. Midoriya swallowed. "Is that… normal?"

"I have a theory," said Melissa, pushing her glasses up. "Since your quirk manifested, I've been looking at other cases where a quirk has a late onset. Pretty much all of these are still children, seven years old on average, but I pulled some strings and got their medical records sent to me." She waved to the stacks of paper on her desk, and Midoriya noticed that some of them were yellowed, significantly older than the others.

"Usually, when a quirk manifests, a child is still growing," said Melissa. "This allows the child's body to grow into and adapt to the quirk. For example, the bones of a young person with a power-type quirk will densify-"

"Like your husband's," Midoriya interjected. Though, he supposed Lemillion was a bad example- like Todoroki the number one hero had two quirks.

Melissa blinked, stealing a sideways glance to Eri, but then nodded. "Yes, like Mirio's," she agreed quickly. "In your case, your body is fully adult. It hasn't had the opportunity to adapt."

Midoriya frowned. "Then why am I ten kilos heavier?"

"I was getting to that." Melissa clicked her pointer, and the display on the screen behind her changed, to a rendered image of the street outside Todoroki's house. "Your body can't grow into its natural form like it would if your quirk had manifested in childhood. This is pretty common with late bloomers- we see the older children often developing medical problems from bodies that are unable to handle their quirks. But in your case your quirk itself seems to reformat your body. When you're rekindled, it's using not only matter from your body, but the environment around you. The craters here, and here," she said, gesturing to where Midoriya had rekindled. "Aren't merely melted from the heat of your quirk as I assumed at first. They're missing a substantial amount of matter. The crater you left in the memorial garden is similar."

Midoriya stared at the screen. "I'm changing? I'm what? Part tarmac now?"

"The, uh, villain Sinuous was also missing a chunk from his tail when I treated him," said Eri, with an apologetic smile to Melissa. "So maybe some of him too."

"I think I need a minute," said Midoriya, weakly, looking down at his hands. They looked the same as they had before he'd died, callused and scarred. No grains of tarmac embedded in the skin, or other signs of being made of anything other than himself.

"Take your time." Melissa nodded to the door, scribbling something down in her notebook. "We can do the other tests I'd planned when you get back."

Midoriya stepped out of Melissa's lab, to the corridor where he had come in by the lift. Emergency lighting indicated the way out in a pale yellow line.

He thought of Ingenium, his hands shaking. That lower body, a twisted mass of oil and chrome. Was _that_ what his body was becoming? He'd grown larger, evidenced by the change in fit to his clothes and shoes, but he'd chosen to ignore it. Just like he'd chosen to ignore the fact that his pretty neighbour was suddenly paying attention to him for no reason. He'd sucked up matter during his rekindling. Bits of the road, bits of a person. It had been a villain that night at Todoroki's, but what about next time? What if he died carrying a civilian away from danger? His flames would consume them, and take their matter in like so much firewood. It was horrible to think about.

What would he become, by the time his body finally _adapted to his quirk_, as Melissa put it? Would he even be recognisably human at all? Or simply two eyes in a pillar of flaming construction material? Would it matter? He supposed not. Like Todoroki had said, being a hero was a lonely business. If he was prepared to give his life to save others, his body was only a small sacrifice. Midoriya rubbed his aching shoulders, turning to face the door to the lab.

No turning back. The dream was the dream, no matter the cost. Midoriya stuck out his jaw, pulling his shoulders back.

"Watcha doin'?" asked a face in the wall, a few feet to Midoriya's left.

Startled, Midoriya gave a yelp. "Lemillion? What are you doing here?"

"That's a funny question to ask, Midoriya. This is my agency, after all." Lemillion's face grinned. "I had a few minutes spare, thought I'd check on how you guys were doing."

"Ah. I'm sorry." Midoriya gave a small bow. "I was just heading back in."

"I'll come with you, then." Lemillion emerged beneficently from the wall. He wore his full hero regalia, sans his helmet, his red cape billowing behind him.

"Eri!" Lemillion cried as he strode into the lab. Eri gave a squeal of delight and jumped into his arms. Lemillion picked her up effortlessly, spinning her around. He put her down with a reproachful glance at his wife. "You didn't tell me Eri was visiting."

Melissa folded her arms over her chest. "Yes, because I knew you'd distract her. I need her focused in case we need to use her quirk."

Midoriya frowned. Much as it distressed him as a hero aficionado, he didn't know exactly what Rewind Girl's quirk was. She hadn't seen much active duty, or done much in the way of publicity- understandable, if she was juggling her hero career with medical school. If he had to guess, perhaps a temporal quirk of some kind, like Teebo's? But why would Melissa need to rewind time?

"Maybe we could get ramen afterwards?" Eri suggested.

"That sounds good." Lemillion grinned. "Hey, did you get to the costume reveal yet?"

"Mirio!" Melissa grumbled. "We were getting to that."

Eri laughed into her hand as Lemillion smiled playfully.

"What? Can't the number one hero take an interest in his wife's work?"

"You're a menace." Melissa swatted at Lemillion's head with her clipboard, and he slid out of the way, still grinning inanely. "If you want to support me so badly, you can help with the benchmarking."

She pressed a button, and a circular hole in the floor opened. A podium emerged, with a mannequin on top. In a costume. _His_ costume, Midoriya realised, a lump in his throat.

"So?" Melissa looked at him expectantly. "What do you think?"

"It's-" Midoriya stared. It was black and green. Skintight, except where armour plating had been added. His vital organs would be left exposed, and the plating instead covering his spine, groin, arms and legs. A pair of dark goggles covered the eyes. Midoriya nodded. "It's perfect. Thank you."

"It should fit," said Melissa, looking between Midoriya and the mannequin. "For now, at least. I used the scan of you I took that night at Shouto's."

"I can put it on?" Midoriya asked.

Melissa nodded. "Actually, I was hoping you could give it a test run."

* * *

Midoriya changed in a side room that seemed to be set aside for that purpose, a mirror and a basin set against one wall. Whatever material Melissa had made the fabric from, it felt strange in his hands- slippery and cold. Something about quantum cooling, though Midoriya had barely understood half of it. He pulled it up over his legs, snapping the armour plates in place.

"Well?" Melissa called over the intercom. "How does it feel?"

"Cold," Midoriya answered.

There was the sound of a pen scratching. "Any burning sensations, sensations of torsion or stickiness?"

"No."

"Good. Okay, we're going to put you through some benchmarking exercises, see how your quirk is affecting your body's performance."

"Okay," Midoriya nodded. "What's the exercise?"

As if in answer, a door at the other end of the chamber slid open with a hiss. "I was going to put you up against some of my new robots," said Melissa. "But since my husband was kind enough to volunteer- _no quirks, Mirio_-"

"Hey again." Lemillion grinned. "Think fast."

Midoriya had time to register that Lemillion wasn't using his strength quirk- he lacked the lightning-like energy that ran over his skin- but the number one hero came in fast and hard. His fist caught Midoriya in the jaw, sending him sprawling. He really wasn't using either or his quirks, Midoriya realised stupidly as his body hit the hard material of the floor. Lemillion was just fast enough to blindside him without them.

Midoriya rolled to his feet, stars in his eyes, but Lemillion was on top of him already, striking again. Midoriya dodged the second punch, twisting out of the way and feeling the air compress as Lemillion's fist passed him. Heart hammering in his chest, he took a step inside the man's guard, blocking a second punch. The number one hero wasn't using _either_ of his quirks, Midoriya realised with a sinking heart- Lemillion's permeation would have allowed his fist to pass through Midoriya's block and punch him anyway.

He threw a punch at the hero's stomach, expecting the block that came and moving out of the way of the counterblow. Midoriya shifted stance, bringing his elbow up in a strike that should have caught the underside of Lemillion's chin.

Lemillion grinned wide as he avoided the strike. "You're actually not bad!" he said, dancing back. "Sir's file on you said you had a couple of different blackbelts, but you're mixing it up, aren't you. It's like your own style!"

Midoriya felt himself return the smile, infected by the hero's good humour. "Thanks!" he gasped, watching the distance between them as the fight resumed.

Even with Midoriya's latest growth spurt, Lemillion still had weight and reach on him. Not to mention the man had been in a hundred times as many fights. He launched a barrage of blows, keeping Midoriya on the back foot, retreating and blocking. Bruises formed on Midoriya's forearms with each strike, and he thought of Himiko. She had kept up with Midoriya in their sparring matches whilst being much smaller and having shorter reach. What would she do in this situation?

She would look for a blind spot.

Lemillion hadn't shown any weakness so far in their sparring match, but that didn't mean he didn't have one. Midoriya thought back to all of the televised fights he'd seen Lemillion in. Lemillion's quirks gave him the strength to level buildings, to defeat foes with a punch, and the ability to phase through matter. It meant that most of his fights were good old-fashioned slug fests- pretty much no-one was stupid enough to try and hold or trap him. But Lemillion wasn't using his quirks.

Midoriya gritted his teeth, steeling himself for his approach. Again, he moved in, into Lemillion's reach, blocking an opportunistic punch before Lemillion raised his guard against a strike. But Midoriya didn't strike, instead pushing in for a grab. Lemillion's eyes flashed with surprise, but Midoriya found himself holding nothing as Lemillion phased into the ground.

_There_, the voice of Himiko seemed to whisper in his ear. _There's the weak point_. In a TV interview five years back, Lemillion had admitted he was blind when he used his phasing quirk. Whether it was true, or just a PR stunt to make the number one seem more human? Midoriya guessed he was about to find out.

Midoriya kicked off as hard as he could, launching himself backwards as Lemillion emerged from the floor, fist raised, where Midoriya would have been a fraction of a second before. Midoriya surged forwards with his fist, catching Lemillion from behind just as he became solid again. Lemillion flew forwards from the impact, grunting as he hit the floor.

"Stop." Melissa's voice came in over the intercom. There was a little worry to it. "We have enough data."

"You okay?" Midoriya held out his hand to the number one hero.

Lemillion rubbed the back of his head, his expression a little rueful. "That was a dirty trick."

Midoriya kept his hand where it was. "Melissa said you wouldn't use either of your quirks."

"She did, didn't she-" Lemillion smiled, closing his eyes. "Okay," he said, clasping Midoriya's wrist and accepting the hand up. "I guess that makes it even."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N- sorry for the wait you guys! **

* * *

In the office above the arena, Melissa had more screens than Midoriya remembered, most of them filled with some sort of informatic or chart. A couple had stills of the sparring match, Midoriya and Lemillion coloured for temperature. Lemillion looked yellow-orange, while Midoriya's silhouette ranged from red to white- what looked like a higher temperature. Midoriya frowned at the image as he took the seat that Melissa offered him. His body felt heavy, and the bruises Lemillion had given him were just starting to hurt.

"So? Does he have a second quirk, like you thought?" Lemillion asked.

Melissa sniffed, and Midoriya's eyes widened. "Two quirks?" he croaked.

Melissa shook her head. "After reviewing the footage of your license exam, I thought that might be the case, but these readings say otherwise." She pursed her lips, pushing her glasses to the bridge of her nose. "Your feats of speed and strength, your increased body temperature- they're not a new quirk. Rather, they're a symptom of your body adapting to your existing quirk."

Melissa tapped the screen in front of her, and an image of one of the scans she had taken popped up. "Usually, bodies are designed to last- if not as long as possible, then as long as practical. The body puts limits on its functions in order to achieve this- limits on body temperature, on heart-rate, and so on. A better performing body is no use to anyone if it keels over dead. In your case, however, your body is, ah, death agnostic. If you keel over dead, it will just rekindle. So your body just keeps increasing heart rate, and stops caring about things like its internal temperature limits and potential organ failure."

"You're saying my body might kill me?" Midoriya interrupted, something like anger hammering in his chest.

The silence from the others was uncomfortable, and Melissa spoke. "No. I'm saying your body _is_ going to kill you. And faster than normal. Even performance like that is going to have a cost."

"I'm going to keel over dead randomly?"

"It's probably going to be heart failure," said Melissa. "But, basically, yes."

Midoriya shook his head. "It's too dangerous, then. I might hurt people when I burn. If I was in a convenience store, or a train station-" he trailed off. "You should lock me up. In Tartarus, maybe-"

He had the feeling of hope, not dissolving, or being dashed in front of him, as Kacchan had once tried to do, but of being crushed, in his own hand. His quirk was going to kill him, and everything around him burning in his ad-hoc pyre.

"Tartarus?" Lemillion interrupted his train of thought with a hand to the top of Midoriya's head. "You're hardly a villain."

"My quirk might kill me. It might kill others-" the truth of it bubbled out of him, too much emotion.

"You and me both, buddy," said Lemillion, wryly. "That's no reason to give up."

"You're right, though, it is dangerous," said Melissa, thoughtfully. "I'll work something into the next iteration of your suit."

There was a chirp from Lemillion's pocket, and he glanced down, his face falling as he swore softly in English.

"What is it?" Eri asked, frowning.

"A call for backup. Any available heroes to come to the power station-" Lemillion trailed off as he read the rest of the message, brow furrowing. "There's been an attack."

* * *

Ken Mujinaki breathed deep as the floor rattled beneath him. Some of the others were nervous, he could tell, but he felt only a deep sense of peace and belonging, like he hadn't felt in a long time. The ceiling above them blocked his view of the sky, but it felt as if he could see it, it would be endless and blue. They'd picked up their youngest member, Wakezono, last, still in his Shiketsu uniform, and the boy pulled his equipment from a school backpack, a sharp nod to Mujinaki before he got to work.

Mujinaki breathed in, willing his breath to reach each part of him, as he had trained. That was the key to his quirk, visualising his breath. With it, he could form spines from his body, and shoot them at will. The suit he had bought with his savings was specially perforated, each hole large enough to let a spine pass easily.

Bubaigawara, the gray-haired scar-faced man, the man who had made this all possible, sat down on his haunches next to him, cigarette balanced between his lips. In a previous life, Mujinaki might have scolded him for smoking inside, but now was hardly the time for that.

"You doing okay, porcupine man?" Bubaigawara asked, brows knitting together under the bandana he wore, and his face twisted a little before he spoke again, tone changing. "**Any last words?**"

Mujinaki gave a sad smile. "I think you know me well enough to know the answer to that."

"Yeah, but I meant-" Bubaigawara gave a hand gesture. "Relatively speaking."

"It'll be over soon," said Mujinaki, breathing in again. His spines were forming under his skin, making him feel like he was wearing an itchy too-small jacket as his skin puckered, threatening to split in places.

"I just wanted you to know," said Bubaigawara, not meeting Mujinaki's eyes. "I really liked you. All of you. **Crazy bastards.**"

Mujinaki couldn't help but smile at Bubaigawara's tic. The man had been part of their little group since the first days, when they'd just been a little chat room. A support group, of sorts, for those who had lost loved ones. Mujinaki had lost his fiance and their unborn child. Tousue's twin brother had been burned alive in a back-alley. Wakezono, the youngest of the group, had lost his parents and grandparents.

In the early years they had tried to comfort each other, sharing stories and memories, and people had drifted in and out. Someone had killed themselves, Mujinaki didn't remember who, and a few of them had met up for the funeral. They'd gone to drink and smoke at the bar afterwards, and Mujinaki had voiced the idea that had been crystallising in them all along.

It wasn't them who was broken. It was the world. The world was horribly, irrevocably fractured, and there was no fixing it.

Human life condensed right down to a few scenes, when you got down to it. His first kiss, on the bridge over an overpass near his high school. The time he'd played in a band in front of a live audience, his grandmother on her deathbed in the hospital. Each of these scenes popped in vivid technicolor, while the time around them was filler- full of people whose faces he no longer remembered, nameless teachers reading from textbooks.

He'd done everything right. A good university, a good firm for his first job, marrying his high-school girlfriend. A child. He'd always wanted a child. A little one with soft hands and clever eyes, who he could show the world. And it had been ripped from him in an instant. The hospital had called him, but they'd both been dead on arrival. The police had asked for a photo to identify the body.

And why? Mujinaki had dwelled on it for a long time. What had he done to deserve this? He'd been kind to people and animals, he'd worked hard his whole life, and for what? The final scene of his life played back, his rush to the hospital, police meeting him at the door, static and ringing in his ears. Every scene after that had been empty, waiting for the credits to play. It was as if he'd been hollowed out, no grief, no prospect of revenge, just the world around him continuing like a lie.

To find out that the others felt the same was a relief. They'd found purpose in honing their quirks, preparing for the task ahead of them.

The world was wrong, and together they would put it right.

Mujinaki's fingers tightened around the vial of quirk-enhancer in his pocket, his eyes on the canvas roof of their vehicle. "You're a good friend, Jin. I'll see you on the other side."

* * *

Flying with Lemillion was a little like flying with All Might had been, sixteen years ago. Scrap that, it was_ exactly_ like flying with All Might. Right down to the crackling energy that seemed to flow through Lemillion's body, and the vertigo that Midoriya felt in the pit of his stomach as buildings became toy-sized beneath them. Was Lemillion's quirk the same as All Might's? Ever the loyal fan, Midoriya had dismissed those theories when they came up on the forums, but flying with Lemillion was too similar somehow. There must be some relationship between the two heroes- not father and son, necessarily- maybe they had been cousins?

Midoriya swallowed, willing himself not to look down again, but Lemillion's grip was firm enough that he didn't worry about falling. The visor on his helmet protected his eyes from the wind.

The power station loomed rapidly in front of them, making Midoriya very aware of just how fast they were going.

"Right-" said Lemillion, and Midoriya saw a smirk form under his helmet. "Brace for impact, guys."

Lemillion did something with his feet- Midoriya wasn't quite sure what, and their vector of flight was suddenly changed, the ground looming before them at incredible speed. Midoriya stifled a scream, but Rewind Girl seemed unworried as Lemillion blew air downwards, slowing their descent.

They landed gently, Lemillion's cloak fluttering as his feet touched down first.

"Thank you for flying Lemilli-air," Lemillion quipped as he released them.

Rewind girl gave him a lopsided smile. "How long were you working on that, Mirio?"

Lemillion stuck out his tongue at her. "I thought it up on the way over."

Midoriya stepped away, feeling a little nauseated as he looked around. "What's the situation?"

"If Melissa is using her standard design-" said Lemillion, thoughtfully, as he tapped a point on the side of Midoriya's visor.

An overlay shimmered into existence on the inside of Midoriya's faceguard, showing hero names of heroes on scene, a plan of the building, and the current location of Midoriya, Lemillion and Rewind Girl. A radio channel fizzed and stuttered in his ears too, a familiar voice speaking.

"-fucking two bit pieces of shit have another thing coming if they think they can pull this on my turf-"

"Kacchan?" Midoriya exclaimed.

"The hell?" Kacchan's snarl into his mic was loud enough that it made Midoriya's headphones clip. "What's this piece of trash doing here?"

"Kacchan-" said Midoriya.

"He's a provisional hero," said Lemillion, from behind him, speaking into his own communicator. "Now quit wasting time, _number three_, and tell us the situation."

"Suck a dick, you shitty All Might rip-off," Kacchan growled, but his insult seemed like punctuation more than anything. Midoriya heard the crackle of Kacchan's quirk in the background. "There's a group of villains holed up in the power station. They've taken workers hostage. My agency is holding ground, but we don't have the firepower to take them out."

"They're that troublesome?" For the first time, Lemillion sounded worried.

"They're well-trained," said Kacchan, darkly. "Red's tanking them, but we can't get a hit through."

"Understood." Lemillion's face was grim. "I'll see what I can do."

"I'll join the support crew with evacuation and medical care," said Rewind Girl. "If there's any trouble there, I'll call for backup."

Lemillion nodded assent. Midoriya moved to follow Rewind Girl, but Lemillion put a hand on his shoulder. "Midoriya," he said. "You're with me."

"What?" Midoriya hurried to catch up with the number one hero. "Why?"

"Everyone in the first aid triage is better trained than you, and your quirk doesn't help them treat people," said Lemillion. "Unless you're really holding back on us and can bring other people back to life."

"No."

"Then you're with me. C'mon."

Midoriya found himself chasing after Lemillion, towards the scene of the battle, chunks of masonry flying through the air.

Midoriya saw Kacchan before he saw the villain he was fighting. His outfit had barely changed since his debut, and he soared gracelessly through the air, a snarl on his lips, before hitting the ground with a roll.

"Took you long enough, shitty cape," Kacchan's voice crackled through the communicator. "They've got at least three emitter types. I've not seen any others, but there's another guy in there."

"Did they issue any demands?" Lemillion asked, moving forwards round a building. Midoriya followed him, stifling a gasp as the battle came into view. A gout of roiling tarmac whipped from the entrance of one of the buildings, hitting several low-ranked heroes aside, and the sturdy hero Red Riot rushed to the front rank, skin turning crystalline as he braced against the wave, arms crossed. It broke over him, but was followed in quick succession by a burst of ice, and he grunted and slid back, his feet finding no traction on the icy ground.

"Fucked if I know," Kacchan spat, annoyed. "We can't all afford to invite these guys to tea like you can, shitty cape."

Midoriya was about to suggest they formulate a battle plan when Lemillion surged forward, his phasing activating for the split second it took to pass through the wave before he landed, sending a shockwave through the earth, knocking back the barriers the tarmac user had constructed.

Midoriya's focus shifted abruptly to the hostages with the villains, tied up and huddled some distance behind them in a small group. They looked to be workers mostly, with high-visibility jackets, though their ID tags seemed to be missing. The villains didn't seem to be guarding them particularly closely, preoccupied with keeping Lemillion and Kacchan back. Eyes on the unfolding scene, Midoriya hurried to the side, looking for an opening. It came sooner than expected, the shockwave from Lemillion's attack tearing a hole in the side of the structure the villains were using. Had that been intentional?

Midoriya didn't stop to question it as he took the entrance, grabbing the nearest hostage and hoisting the man over his shoulders.

"Yoohoo-" came a voice from the villain group, and a man stepped to the fore. He was middle-aged, with grey hair, a faded red bandana on his forehead, but more importantly he was Jin Bubaigawara, of the liberation front, and Midoriya hurled himself to the ground, his body shielding the man he'd rescued as everything happened at once.

* * *

Mujinaki watched Japan's number one hero in action in tandem with the number three from the sidelines, careful to not allow the sun to reflect on the lenses of his binoculars. His friends were fighting bravely, and it hurt to not be helping them, not covering their weaknesses, but out of all of them he was best suited for the next part of their plan. His heart dropped in his chest as Bubaigawara stepped out into view of the heroes, arms raised. The number one was on him almost instantly, the number three pouncing quickly behind him.

"Wakezono," Mujinaki called into his radio, the channel crackling to life. "Now."

"Roger-" came the boy's response, and the transmission distorted and cut as his quirk activated. But it was too late. It had always been too late. Even as time slowed in the region around Wakezono, Lemillion's fist was already making contact with Bubaigawara's face, a spray of matter frozen in the air behind him, and Mujinaki forced himself to tear his eyes away.

This was ultimate technique that Wakezono had been trained to hone, at the elite hero school he'd picked. Frozen time. Even with the help of Bubaigawara's quirk enhancing drugs, their little group had never stood a hornet's chance in hell of overpowering Lemillion. But they'd never needed to. All they needed to do was delay him a little. Mujinaki set the timer on his wristwatch running, turning to the stairs behind him. Without quirk enhancers, Wakezono's ultimate technique could last up to three minutes, and if they were lucky the drugs would double that window.

"I'm in the backup system," Tousue's voice crackled through to him as he ran down the hallway. Emergency lights illuminated the whole place in a pulsing red-yellow, the sirens reverberating through the floor. Mujinaki bull-rushed one security guard aside, pinning another to a wall with a spine before he could go for his weapon.

Tousue's success meant that they were one step closer to their goal.

* * *

"Kacchan!" Midoriya stared in horror at the scene behind him. Kacchan was frozen midair, face twisted in a snarl. Below him, red riot stood, arms braced against an oncoming deluge of lightning, and before them was Lemillion, his eyes wide with surprise as he struck the villain Twice, gobbets of white matter flying from his fist. They were frozen in time, like a photograph, and in the centre of the villains stood a figure that Midoriya recognised from the videos of the Shiketsu sports festivals he had watched. Teebo, a sphere of time frozen around him.

"The reactor." The hostage Midoriya had shielded with his body gave a cough from underneath him. "I heard them talking. They're going to overload the reactor."

"What?" Midoriya felt cold as he stared at the worker. "Why- why would they do that?" He tapped the side of his visor frantically, hoping that his communicator would know to tune into nearby heroes. "Melissa? Rewind Girl?"

"Midoriya?" Eri Aizawa's voice came through. "What's wrong?"

"Kacchan and the others have been taken out-" Midoriya fought with himself not to babble as he explained the situation. "The villains are going to take out the reactor. I'm going to stop them."

"What? They took out Mirio?" Eri's voice was tinged with fear.

Midoriya stood, brushing dust from his costume as the hostage he'd rescued did likewise. "One of the villains has a time control quirk. He's frozen time around him. The hostages too."

"I might be able to reverse it if I came. Wait there-"

"There's no time." Midoriya pushed his way through a door, eyes widening as he spotted the body of a security guard, pinned to a wall by a bony spike. "I uh- I think they might be at the reactor already."

There was silence on the other end, and for a second Midoriya wondered if his costume had lost signal. When it came through again, Eri's voice was breathless, as if she was running. "I'll patch you through to someone who knows the shut-down procedures. More heroes are en route, I'll let you know when they get here."

"Thanks." Midoriya rushed through another door, further towards the centre of the complex. The plan displayed on his headset was crude, but he'd seen enough of the complex from above when he'd come in with Lemillion that he was fairly sure that he was going in the right direction. He had an odd feeling in his gut, like he had on the train last night with Todoroki, the feeling that he was being watched, but he did his best to shake it off as he navigated through the complex.

Midoriya's headset crackled to life once more as one of the heroes from the first aid tent patched him through to one of the engineers who had been evacuated. Midoriya couldn't see the engineer's face, but from the way the woman spoke, he decided that she sounded about fifty.

"I'm afraid it's bad news, Midoriya," she said, after their introductions were made. "I only have partial access to the systems, and it looks as if the villains have disabled the failsafe systems. If you want to stop the meltdown, you'll have to do so manually."

"What does that mean?" Midoriya asked.

"It means… you'll likely be exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. I'm sorry, young man."

Midoriya shook his head, before realising that the engineer couldn't see him. He passed through another set of doors, this one smashed open, the security panel hanging from the wall by a single wire. The line crackled with static briefly before the audio resumed. "Don't worry about me, ma'am. My quirk should protect me. Just tell me the sequence for the shutdown."

* * *

The sound of steam pressure building hummed in Mujinaki's ears, his heart beating too loud in his chest. Bubaigawara had sacrificed himself, and from the sounds of it other members of the chatroom were being picked off by security.

It didn't matter. None of it mattered, really. Tousue and the others had already started the process of overloading the coolant systems and disabling the failsafes. By the time the heroes worked out that the remote shutdown was inoperable, it would be too late. Mujinaki checked his wristwatch. Another two minutes left on Wakezono's frozen bubble of time. Even if Lemillion clocked what was going on and tried to destroy the reactor, it would have much the same effect as the planned meltdown, if not worse. Around him, alarms joined the chorus with a soprano urgency, gauge needles spasming to red, and he tasted calm again.

He surveyed the control panel in front of him, an array of manual switches. It had been years since he'd worked here, but thankfully this wasn't the sort of interface that got updated.

Mujinaki didn't bother turning as the hero entered the plant room behind him. The last hero.

"You can't stop me," he said, making his voice cold as he flipped a switch with one hand, palming the quirk-enhancing drugs with another. "You'll have to kill me first."

* * *

"You can't stop me." The villain before Midoriya was hulking huge, spines like those of a porcupine bristling from the mesh clothing he wore, some bloody, some damaged. "You'll have to kill me first."

Midoriya's body shook, his mind superimposing a thousand scenes of All Might on top of himself. His communication with the outside world was gone, even Melissa's handiwork unable to function in the ambient radiation, and a warning symbol hovered in the corner of his visor's HUD. What would his hero do? But Midoriya wasn't All Might. He wasn't even All Might's chosen successor- that man was outside, frozen in a pocket of time by a radicalised high school student. So instead of _stop right there, villain,_ or _I am here,_ he said "There's a dangerous amount of radiation in this room. You should leave."

The villain turned, a slight frown on his face, and Midoriya noticed too late that the villain had jabbed a needle of something into his own arm. "Make me," the villain growled, seeming to grow in height as his spines lengthened.

Midoriya barely had time to dodge the first attack, a barrage of spines from the man's arm. He rolled, the control panel behind him sparking as a spine shorted something.

Midoriya crouched behind a panel as the villain spoke, voice distorted and gruff. "You so-called heroes, you don't understand. You don't understand what we're trying to do here."

Midoriya weighed his options. There was no way of carrying the villain away and controlling the meltdown at the same time. The villain stood between him and the manual override. "What is there to understand?" he yelled, drawing the villain's attention. "You want to kill thousands of people!"

"No," the villain breathed, spines rustling, his boots heavy on the metal floor. "We want to heal the world. You must have felt it. Everything's been broken. For years. It's unbearable."

The image came to Midoriya almost unbidden, of All Might at Kamino, grainy footage, almost unreal, and a ringing in his ears. The sensation of hollowness he'd felt, almost palpable even years later. Midoriya ground his teeth, bringing himself back into the moment. "I understand how you feel," he said, bringing himself into a crouch. "But this isn't the way!"

"NO!" The villain turned as Midoriya leapt for him, spines shooting out. Midoriya smashed them aside, using the armour plating on his costume to deflect them as he closed.

Much as he wanted to game it otherwise, the villain was right. He couldn't turn the valves and so forth that he needed to turn with someone obstructing him, and knocking the quirk-boosted villain out would take seconds that he might not have.

* * *

_This isn't the way._ The hero's words echoed inside Mujinaki's skull, and he roared, the canines his quirk had given him extending as he tried to block them out.

The hero was annoyingly fast, moving out of range of Mujinaki's spines as he mounted a counterattack, hitting hard with armoured feet and fists, hard enough that Mujinaki was sure that without the quirk enhancers he would be down. In the space between their movements, the hero moved towards the wall of switches and valves that would be the only way to stop the meltdown, forcing Mujinaki to intercept him.

Mujinaki took advantage of the change in pace to hit back, cracking the hero's visor. "We have to break the world into a thousand pieces," he said, his quills regrowing in under his skin fast enough to make him bleed all over, rivulets of it running into his eyes. It was hot in here, and he was rapidly growing exhausted. "So that it can be put together again."

"What?" The green-haired hero's face was a grimace. "That's not how you fix things. Killing people is wrong!"

"I thought you said you understood," said Mujinaki, pausing as he looked into the hero's eyes, green like his hair. There was something there, he was sure of it, some glimmer of recognition of the broken world. Around them, pipes thrummed, and there was the sound of machinery, metal on metal resonant below the scream of alarms.

The green-haired hero hesitated, and for a second Mujinaki dared hope that he actually understood their mission, but then his expression hardened again. "I'm sorry," he said. The noise of metal on metal intensified, and Mujinaki realised they were no longer alone.

Mujinaki raised his arm, shooting a spine at the hero's throat.

* * *

Midoriya moved at the last second, blocking the spike with his bracers. Backup, or what he assumed to be backup, approached quickly, and in the red shadows of the emergency lights Midoriya saw All Might before the interloper's true identity became apparent.

_Ingenium._ Midoriya watched with horror as the twisted mass of metal that had once been Tensei Iida approached, still human, just about, from the waist up clad in kevlar armour, and from the waist down a whirring, undulating mass of pistons and scar tissue. It formed jointless, pistoning limbs, propelling him forward like a child's idea of a centipede, but at incredible pace.

His engines roared above the sound of the sirens and the thrum of the over-pressurised pipes.

For a second Midoriya tensed, wondering if the vigilante was working with the villain group, and about to charge him down, until Ingenium's arm shot forward, more metal than flesh, the sharp edge of it severing the porcupine quirk user's head from his body. It hit a nearby wall and rolled, face down to the ground as the villain's body collapsed.

Midoriya stood to face the vigilante, arm raised as Ingenium turned towards him. "Stop right there!"

"We don't have time for this," Ingenium grated, his blue eyes calculating. "From how you were moving, you know the shutdown sequence."

Midoriya didn't bother to correct him. "It's dangerous in here- the radiation-" he started, but Ingenium cut him off with a look.

"My quirk lets me tolerate more of these harsh conditions than a normal person," he said, and Midoriya wasn't sure if he was being truthful, but the sirens wailed around them, the air in the room hot and thick. Only two lines of pixels on Midoriya's HUD still remained, the rest stuttering out.

"Alright," said Midoriya, with a frown. Moving as he did, he told the vigilante which valves needed to be turned, and they worked in tandem. True to his word, Ingenium seemed hardy, working through without complaint even as Midoriya's fingers blistered and bled. At last there was only one left.

"You should leave," said Midoriya, his voice unrecognisably hoarse, as they came to the final set. The sequence would be complete, but with the damage the villain had caused, it was likely to flood the control room with high-pressure steam. "I can handle these by myself."

Some small part of himself second-guessed his decision, but the vigilante was already gone, leaving him alone with the ominous hiss of the vents.

His hands shook as he turned the final set, blood pooling over his tongue. Death felt familiar, but it always hurt so much. He was so hot, sweating so much, his body so heavy. He gave a gasp, stumbling back as his flames ignited once more.


	14. Chapter 14

Death, of course, was not the end. Midoriya felt like laughing as the flames consumed him. Burning to death was a new one, but oddly familiar. There was less terror at least, less sense of his life flashing before his eyes, just falling, or flying, depending on which way you looked at it. Slipping into the darkness and then the golden light, he wondered if there was a way he could have saved the villain that Ingenium had killed. All Might would have been fast enough, would have saved him, wrapped his arms around him and made sure he served his time in Tartarus. But much as he wished he was, Midoriya was not All Might. Even with a quirk, and a hero license. He was just Midoriya.

The fire faded, and he stood once more in the ashes, costume smouldering.

The following hours passed in a blur. Making his way out of the compound, Midoriya was greeted by officials in protective gear, pointing Geiger counters at him, and he soon found himself sitting on a gurney in a temporary shelter, sunlight filtering through the yellow plastic.

"Where the fuck is he?" Midoriya would have recognised that yelling anywhere. "Let me through."

Midoriya slid from his seat, looking towards the entrance. "Kacchan?"

One of the officials outside was trying to hold Kacchan by the sounds of it, their voice muffled by protective equipment. "Sir, this is a contaminated area."

There was the sound of a scuffle, and a yelp from whoever was standing watch outside, and Kacchan barged in, filthy and furious. His hero costume was damaged, mask cracked half off, but aside from a few scratches he seemed uninjured.

Kacchan closed the distance between himself and Midoriya, finger jabbing at his chest, with a forcefulness that was painful even through Midoriya's costume. "You dipshit! Think you can steal all the glory, hah?"

The what? Midoriya blinked. "Kacchan- I just shut down the reactor, that's all."

"Bullshit," Kacchan growled, spittle flying. "Your first mission, and you save ten thousand people? You trying to make the rest of us look bad?"

"What- ten thousand?" Midoriya stammered out.

Kacchan grunted. "Don't give me that. Isn't that what you were always going on about? How you're going to save people? Well, you did it. Good job, idiot."

Midoriya found a grin creeping onto his face as the number three hero's words sank in. "Thanks, Kacchan."

"Yeah, well-" Kacchan pulled a face. "At least you won, I guess."

Midoriya nodded, his mind cutting back to Ingenium. Midoriya had let one man die, and a wanted criminal go. Kacchan wouldn't be congratulating him if he knew the truth. But there was something else playing in the back of his mind. He'd ruled out Lemillion and his wife as traitors, as well as Todoroki. He wasn't willing to countenance it being Kacchan, not yet. That left-

"Kacchan-" Midoriya ventured. "How well do you know Uraraka? You went to UA together, right?"

Kacchan stared at him with a mixture of scorn and confusion, red eyes blazing. "The hell?" he spat. "Why are you asking me bullshit like that? The explosion melt your brains or something?"

"No." Midoriya swallowed, feeling himself trip over his own words, old speech patterns returning. "I was- I was just wondering if you knew her really well."

Kacchan glared at him, and Midoriya felt a surge of unease under his stare. Kacchan had always been a lot of things- angry, impulsive, obtuse. But stupid was not one of those things. Something had clicked into place in Kacchan's head, Midoriya was sure of it. "The fuck are you implying," he growled.

There was a quiet cough from the entrance of the tent. "Am I interrupting something?"

Kacchan spun round, eyes narrowing to glare at the intruder. "The fuck are you doing here?"

Over Kacchan's shoulder, Midoriya could see that the newcomer was Uravity's top sidekick, Heavenly Body. His hero costume consisted of a shirt that left his chiselled stomach exposed, bright red short-shorts, and knee-high white boots that matched Uravity's, but with red details rather than her pink. He wore a helmet on his head, with what looked like several of saturn's rings on a skew around it.

Three small metal spheres bobbed in the air as they circled him, courtesy of his quirk, _orbit. "_I should ask you the same question," he said. "Since you're currently harassing an intern from my agency."

"_Your _agency?" Kacchan seethed. "Big talk for someone who's too fucking incompetent to make it without round-face backing him up."

"Kacchan. That's enough." Midoriya pulled himself up to his full height, finding to his surprise that he was just a hair taller than Kacchan, and put his hand on Kacchan's shoulder. He half expected Kacchan to explode at him, but to his surprise the hero's eyes widened fractionally before he slapped the hand away.

"Don't tell me what to do," he snapped, moving to leave. "Damn _intern._"

Midoriya looked to Heavenly Body as Kacchan shoved his way past him. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Heavenly Body beamed. "You don't know? You're the man of the hour, Izukuu," he dragged out Midoriya's name with a grin. "The attack was safely averted, and Lemillion is pinning the credit squarely on you." He squinted at Midoriya. "Now, you're not radioactive anymore, right?"

Hesitantly, Midoriya nodded. "They said my quirk helped somehow."

"Sweet. Then you should come with me."

* * *

Heavenly Body walked beside Midoriya to the makeshift stage that had been set up for the media. It was a good distance from the facility, but close enough that the cooling towers still loomed in the background, largely undamaged by the day's events. The pro hero Nejire-chan was flying about, assisting the emergency repair crews with her quirk, and the stage was occupied by a police officer, who was taking questions.

"So, I take it you've not had media training?" Heavenly Body asked.

"That's Meteo-right!" said Midoriya cheerfully, recalling the sidekick's catchphrase from his debut three years ago.

"Hoo boy, okay. We're gonna have fun with this." Heavenly Body rubbed his chin. "How are you in front of crowds?"

"I-" Midoriya thought about it. The last time he'd presented in front of a crowd larger than a departmental meeting at Can't Stop Sparkling was university, and he vaguely remembered being terrified in front of a lecture hall full of people. "Not bad," he said. "Did you have- uh- any tips for me?"

Heavenly Body nodded, launching immediately into a lecture on media relations that made Midoriya wish he had one of his notebooks with him, but he took in as much as he could without one.

"Now, we've got you down to make a statement to the press, but if anyone asks any questions, you can field them to me or Ochako, got it?"

Numbly Midoriya nodded, and it seemed like only a few seconds passed before he was being pressed up onto the stage, Heavenly Body giving him a double thumbs up from the sidelines. The flash of the cameras was blinding, and Midoriya suppressed the urge to cover his eyes, heart beating loud in his chest as he forced himself to wave to the crowd. How were they more intimidating than a villain, he wondered, as the advice Heavenly Body had given him slipped from his mind like oil. Did journalists really scare him more than death? Midoriya tried not to mumble as he read from his pre-prepared statement, something one of Uravity's press officers had whipped up. It bore little relation to what he had experienced, but he supposed that it was for the best. Who would want to know about his experiences, anyway? The smell of blood, how he felt at the moment of death? It was too dark for the newspapers. Midoriya stumbled his way to the end of the statement, wishing fervently that he'd had time to memorise it, and came to the last line.

"I- ah-" Midoriya swallowed down his nerves, his grip tight on the podium as he leaned over the microphone. "Any questions?"

Several journalists raised a hand.

"Ah, yes?" Midoriya swallowed, pointing to one at the back, a woman in a navy blazer.

"Is it true that you haven't picked a hero name yet?" she asked.

"I, ah, yeah." Midoriya grinned, hand going nervously to the back of his head. "Guess I've been too busy saving people so far."

There was laughter from the crowd, and Midoriya felt like press conferences weren't the _worst_ part of being a hero.

When he got off stage, Eri was waiting for him, still in full hero costume, a faint golden aura surrounding her that shimmered out as Midoriya approached.

"Sorry I got to you so late." Eri gave him an apologetic smile. "Mirio said you should be low priority, because of your quirk."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm using my quirk on anyone who's been exposed to the radiation," Eri explained. "To rewind them to the point before the attack."

"I see," said Midoriya, with a small frown. "The medics who treated me said I didn't show signs of exposure. Something to do with my quirk."

"Really?" Eri looked faintly surprised. "But you were right in the middle of it."

Midoriya nodded.

"You should pass that on to Melissa," said Eri. "She'd be interested."

"If someone else was in there with me," said Midoriya, a thought nagging at him, Ingenium's voice grating out an _I'll be fine_. "I mean, theoretically-" he trailed off.

"Then they probably received a lethal dose of radiation," said Eri, frowning at him.

"Even if they had some kind of biomechanical quirk?"

"No, that shouldn't make a difference. The organic parts of the person's body would still be damaged." Eri's eyes narrowed. "Why? There wasn't anyone in there with you, was there?"

Panic seized Midoriya's heart. There was no way for him to admit what happened without implicating himself in Ingenium's actions, but if what Eri told him was right, Ingenium was going to die. "I, uh-" he hesitated, looking about, at the officials in protective gear that were scurrying around. "Could I get your number? Get back to you on that. Sorry-"

Eri gave him a tired sort of smile. "You're a funny guy, Midoriya," she said. "Sure."

* * *

With access to the scanners Lemillion's agency had brought in for the incident, it hadn't been hard to track Ingenium down- a trail of radiation lead from the powerplant to the building where he was hiding- too dispersed to cause serious harm, but high enough to show up on the instruments. Briefly, Midoriya considered asking for backup, but his position as an intern at the Uravity agency seemed precarious enough as it was, and he couldn't admit to having let Ingenium go.

Instead, he called the number Eri had given him, and agreed a meeting place nearby, in a public park, hoping that she would take him seriously and come.

"What is this about?" Eri Aizawa sidled towards him, her white hair loose around her shoulders, tinged yellow by the streetlights. The dark circles under her eyes seemed even deeper than they had been that morning, and her expression was suspicious.

Midoriya released the breath he had been holding. The message he'd sent her had been about saving someone's life. He hadn't dared be more specific than that. "It's Ingenium," he said.

"The vigilante?" Eri's expression twisted, and she reached into her pocket for her phone. "He's dangerous."

"Wait. Just hear me out."

The look Eri gave him was stern. "He murders people."

She wasn't wrong. Midoriya raised his hands, palms forward. "He helped today. At the powerplant."

Her eyes widened. "He helped?"

"There was a villain there. I don't know if I would have been able to complete the shutdown sequence without him," said Midoriya.

There was a silence in the night air between them. "And so you let him go," finished Eri, her voice soft. "Didn't you."

Midoriya's heart sank, and he lowered his chin to his chest. He had a thousand excuses, but none of them seemed to stand up to scrutiny anymore. Not enough time, not enough strength. They were the same excuses that had circled him his whole life, with every failed attempt to become a hero.

"And now you want me to come with you and save his life?" Eri asked.

"Please." Midoriya screwed his eyes shut, clasping his hands together. "I can't just let him die."

"Because he saved your ass back in the control room," said Eri, her jaw clenched. "That doesn't erase what he's done."

"No." Midoriya heard his own voice crack. "Because he _can_ be saved."

There was a pause as Eri stared at him. "I'm pretty sure that what you're asking is illegal," she said, drily.

A lump of hope rose unbidden in Midoriya's throat. "Then you will help?"

"I'm a hero," said Eri, shoving her hands firmly into her pockets as she stared at him. "I can't leave someone to die, no matter who they are."

Midoriya's shoulders slumped as he released the breath he hadn't realised he had been holding.

* * *

The place he'd tracked Ingenium to stank of stale grapefruit and metal, even from the stairwell. A single electric light buzzed as it flickered on and off above the door. Midoriya wouldn't have even considered the building as a possible residence if he hadn't already scouted it. Midoriya raised the radiation counter to the door and it crackled to life, needle twitching. "He's here."

"You weren't planning on knocking?" asked Eri. "That's rude."

"I'm very sorry!" Midoriya called, as he tried the door. It was unlocked, and he stepped in, not removing his shoes. Ingenium had been helpful back in the control room of the powerplant, but there was no guarantee of him being sanguine about Midoriya bursting in on him in his hideout, and, whether he was suffering radiation poisoning or not, Midoriya didn't fancy fighting a killer in his socks. Eri gave him a questioning look but followed suit, capture weapon still festooned about her neck like a scarf.

Inside it was dark, light from the streetlamps outside seeping through the blinds that covered the windows in long lines, and Midoriya saw movement in the far corner, a faint shink of oiled metal on metal. A cough, crackling with fluid. Ingenium.

Midoriya tensed, and felt Eri do the same behind him. Ingenium's body looked stranger and more intimidating in a confined space, but closing in Midoriya could see that his suspicions were correct- Ingenium looked sick, his lips cracked and stained with dried blood, which also speckled the blankets of the bed he was lying on. His hair was in disarray, a few pieces of his equipment discarded around him.

"Ingenium," Midoriya said.

Tensei Iida looked up at Midoriya through rheumy eyes. Cartons of juice were scattered over the floor, the spilled liquid pooling and staining where it lay. His mechanical body was supine, the interlocking metal plates skewed at odd angles where it had curled over to fit on the mattress in the corner of the room furthest from the window.

"You-" he hissed, and his lower body whirred, the length of it twitching as he drew himself up.

"Easy now," Midoriya raised his hands. "We're here to help."

"_We_?" Ingenium's head jerked in Eri's direction, and Midoriya found himself stepping in, putting his body between Ingenium and Eri.

"You shouldn't get much closer than that," said Eri from behind him. "The range on his arm blades is about two metres."

Midoriya nodded, wishing he had brought a notebook with him.

"You're in no danger from me," said Ingenium, wiping a little dark liquid from his mouth. "I mean no harm to you, Rewind Girl. Or to the pyrefly here."

Eri gave a growl in her throat. "Big words. For a killer."

Ingenium stared at her, his eyes flat, his lower body giving a metallic susurrus as it shifted. "I do what's necessary," he rasped. "What no-one else is willing to do."

Eri swallowed. "_Heroes_ do what's necessary," she said, a hard edge to her voice. "Without killing anyone."

"If both of us had heroes in that control room, everyone would have died," said Ingenium, with a look at Midoriya, his expression nearly identical to the one he had worn when he had decapitated the spined villain. "The villains are already winning the world. Is that really what you want?"

"What's he talking about?" Eri looked between them, her expression critical. "Midoriya, what happened in there?"

Midoriya steeled himself, willing his legs not to shake, which was easier said than done now that he faced the vigilante up close. "Can we have this discussion after we've saved your life?" he asked.

"You've been a hero less than a day, and already you're seeing how the hero's code falls down in the face of reality. How did you like your handicap? The villains get to try to kill you as much as they want to, and you get to slap them in handcuffs."

Midoriya felt his jaw twitch, and he clenched his fist as he looked at Eri. "There was a villain with us, in the control room," he admitted. "Ingenium killed him."

Eri's face was impassive. "That's hardly out of character."

"It was the only practical choice," said Ingenium, his eyes betraying no guilt.

"It's not about practicality," said Midoriya. "It's about protecting people. Saving people."

"Saving people? When it came down to it, you needed to make a choice," said Ingenium. "Between the life of a man and the lives of those he threatened. And you hesitated."

"A hero can save all of those lives. Even the villains."

Ingenium gave a tired smile. "My brother would have agreed with you. And look where that got him."

"I've had about enough of this," said Eri, stepping forward past Midoriya. A faint golden aura gathered around her horn, and her mouth was set in a hard line. "I think there was a kettle and stuff in the kitchen. Get me some coffee."

"But-" Midoriya started, and Eri shut him down with a small frown.

"I'm doing you a huge favour not calling the both of you in as co-conspirators," she said. "So do me a favour too and get me some coffee, okay?"

Midoriya stepped into the grimy kitchenette, rifling through the cupboards in search of coffee. Judging by the number of grapefruit cartons, pressed flat and stacked neatly in the recycling bin, Ingenium hadn't been here too long. A week at most, probably dating back to the photos of him Midoriya had seen on the forums. There had to be someone helping Ingenium stay hidden, but Midoriya saw no sign of them in the house, no discarded mail or post-it on the wall.

Had Ingenium been in the right about the villain? Midoriya mulled it over as he rinsed a cup in the sink and spooned some instant coffee into it. Golden light from Eri's quirk spilled over the threshold from the main room as he set the kettle to boil.

By the time the coffee was finished, the glow had faded again, and Eri stood before the vigilante, the horn on her forehead perhaps a little longer than it had been that morning. Ingenium had folded in on himself, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed, but his breathing was steadier than before.

"He'll be okay," said Eri, taking the cup from Midoriya's hands and drinking from it without looking at him. "I rewound him a day or so- to before the incident. Unless he was playing around in nuclear waste dumps before that, he should be fine."

"Thank goodness," Midoriya huffed a sigh of relief, and Ingenium's eyes opened again.

"How do you feel?" Eri asked him, and Ingenium felt at his throat with his more-human hand, expression thoughtful.

"I'm… functional," he said. He flexed the fingers of his hand, and there was an answering noise from his lower body, the low whisper of oiled metal on metal. He smiled, an expression that looked out-of-place on his lined face. "Thank you, for my reprieve."

"It's more mercy than you've ever given anyone," said Eri, her voice dark, and Midoriya wondered briefly if Ingenium's long list of victims included anyone she had known.

"So what's it going to be?" Ingenium tilted his head. "You going to take me in? Or let me free to do the things that need to be done?"

A few days ago, it wouldn't have even been a question. Ingenium was a vigilante, a murderer. His rap sheet was longer than most villains, starting with Stain and continuing in the same vein, the worst and most dangerous men and women. But something inside Midoriya told him that Tensei Iida wasn't a bad man at the core of it. A desperate man, perhaps. A man pressed to desperate ends by circumstance. Would All Might have let him go? For once, Midoriya wasn't sure.

"We're taking you in," said Midoriya, sounding more sure than he was.

Ingenium seemed unsurprised. "Just as well," he said, with a small bow of his head. "I've been meaning to purge Tartarus for a while."

A little of the tension seemed to leave Eri's shoulders. "You'll go willingly?"

"Unless you wanted a fight," said Ingenium, cocking an eyebrow as he looked between the two of them.

Eri nodded, looking to Midoriya. "You watch him. I'll call for transport."

It seemed to Midoriya that Ingenium was the one watching him as he stood guard, the half-man's blue eyes languid and knowing. A van passed outside, close enough to rattle the blinds in the windows.

"After you killed Stain, you could have gone straight again," said Midoriya, voicing his thoughts.

"You're wondering why I didn't?" Ingenium tilted his head, and his lower body shifted.

"I- yeah-" Midoriya frowned. "I mean, you were a _hero_."

"Like you always wanted to be." A hiss that might have been a chuckle emerged from Ingenium's body.

"I-" A jolt of unease ran up Midoriya's spine. "How did you know that?"

"You were sponsored by a top hero agency," said Ingenium. "Mentored by another. You think I haven't looked into your background?" He paused, before continuing. "AllMight#1Fan."

Midoriya swallowed, remembering the feeling he'd had coming back from the bar with Todoroki. "You've been watching me."

Ingenium didn't bother to deny it. "You should join me," he said, softly. "You have an understanding of what's at stake." He breathed out, engines in his lower half idling. "Though if you don't have the stomach for my line of work, perhaps you could work on cleaning your own house instead."

"What's that meant to mean?"

"The hero association is compromised, hopelessly," said Ingenium. "You're not the only one I've been watching."

Midoriya started, remembering what Sir Nighteye had told him. A spy, in the upper ranks. He couldn't let anyone know, not without putting them in danger too. He looked to the doorway, but Eri showed no sign of returning. "What do you know?"

"That they're foiled at every turn. They're little more than puppets, jumping where the liberation front lead them."

It matched with what Nighteye had said. Midoriya bit his lip. Anyone who knew about the spy was in danger, but he was pretty sure Ingenium wasn't about to go spreading that sort of knowledge around, and if he knew something, anything.

"Sir Nighteye told me-" Midoriya started, as Eri returned, the slam of the door and the sound of her footsteps on the stairs cutting his statement short.

"That man-" Ingenium's lips closed, and the gaze he gave Midoriya was sharp. His words were carefully chosen. "Be careful with him. He's not what he seems."


	15. Chapter 15

_Be careful with him. He's not what he seems._

Ingenium's words echoed in Midoriya's skull under the flashing lights of the police cars. He watched from the sidelines as the injured vigilante was put in restraints. How could Sir Nighteye be something other than he seemed? He'd worked with All Might, been his sidekick. His agency's record had been impeccable. The current number one hero, Lemillion, had trained at his agency. Could he really trust a vigilante's words over Sir Nighteye's?

Just his luck that Ingenium's place would be on Kacchan's turf.

Kacchan looked exhausted, his costume fresh but the rest of him tired, and Midoriya had half a mind to ask him why he hadn't sent a sidekick out to deal with the arrest. One glare from the explosion hero had Midoriya thinking better of it. Ingenium was a real threat, of course Kacchan wanted to be there in case the vigilante changed his mind about being taken in. He stood to one side, feeling a little useless as the police and the licensed heroes dealt with the paperwork and loaded Ingenium into a van. His death and resurrection had renewed his body, but his mind felt as if it was fraying.

"Oi, Deku." Kacchan strode over to where Midoriya was standing, nostrils flared with irritation. "You're coming with me." He jerked his thumb to the vehicle parked behind the police van where Ingenium was being loaded.

Midoriya nodded. Kacchan had bought the vehicle that the others had referred to as the Riotmobile, all pristine red paint and black metal spikes. Kacchan hopped in without opening the door, and watched Midoriya tight-lipped from the driver's seat as he got in.

Midoriya sank backwards into the passenger seat, the enormity of everything that had happened that day sinking in. All he wanted to do was close his eyes for a second, but he couldn't afford to sleep right now, not with Ingenium's words clattering round in his head. _You have an understanding of what's at stake._ Midoriya shook his head, discarding the notion, and Kacchan glowered at him.

Midoriya chewed his thumb absently as they followed the secure van that held Ingenium, wishing he'd had more time to question the vigilante. He needed Kacchan's help with this. And that meant asking him about the other heroes in the top ten. But how to broach it? He couldn't go straight in. Could he?

"I've got questions," Kacchan interrupted Midoriya's chain of thought with a growl. "And this time that dweeb from round-face's agency isn't gonna fucking protect you."

"Questions?" Midoriya repeated. They followed the van down a near-empty highway, the floodlights above reflecting in the Riotmobile's curved windows as they drove.

Kacchan grunted an affirmative. "Yeah. Like how come Himiko Toga's so fucking interested in you. How come the day after your debut there's a disaster only the incredible Deku can deal with?"

"I-" Midoriya opened his mouth and closed it again.

"And how come you manage to track down a vigilante who's been on the run for _years_ in the space of hours?" Kacchan shook his head. "Smells like shit to me."

For all his bluster and bluntness, Kacchan had never been stupid. "I don't know." Midoriya shook his head. "I know that's not a convincing story, but that's all I've got. What do you expect me to say? That I've been working with Ingenium all along?" He frowned. Telling a lie to his childhood friend sat wrong with him, whatever their relationship now. "He turned up in the powerplant. I'd never seen him before that." Though Ingenium had certainly been aware of Midoriya for longer. He'd known his forum username. "I tracked him down from the radiation."

"Hah." Kacchan sounded more pleased with himself than angry. "Knew you couldn't have done it all yourself."

"You're not angry at me?"

"For what?" Kacchan's eyebrow quirked. "Stealing all the glory?" His red eyes were on the road again. "I don't suppose Toga turned up too? Give you a fucking hand?"

"What are you trying to imply?" Midoriya's brows knotted. "That I've been working with the liberation front all along, and they orchestrated all of this? Kacchan, I was quirkless. I was worse than dirt to those guys."

"Feh." Kacchan's sneer was tangible. "I guess they wouldn't work with a dweeb like you." They turned a corner, onto a stretch of road that Midoriya didn't recognise, leading out of the city, and Kacchan frowned at the road ahead. "Why were you asking me about round-face?"

Midoriya closed his eyes. Sir Nighteye had said not to trust anyone with his mission, but he could trust Kacchan, couldn't he?

"There's a spy in the hero association," said Midoriya. "Somewhere near the top."

"What!?" Bakugou turned to stare at him, and Midoriya frantically gestured for him to focus on the road. They narrowly missed a heavy lorry as the pro-hero regained control of the car. "Who?"

"I was hoping you could help me with that," said Midoriya, and Kacchan's shoulders slumped.

"Well, it's not roundface," he said, with a snort. "She's had opportunity, sure, but she can't lie for shit. You can rule out number one, too, for that matter."

"Lemillion? Why?"

"He's more powerful than All Might," said Kacchan, a little sourly. "And I mean Golden Age All Might, punch for punch. If Lemillion was with the enemy, we'd have a bigger problem than some fucking spying."

"Galeforce?" Midoriya asked, thinking of the powerhouse number five.

"That idiot?" Kacchan gave a snort. "He failed his provisional license exam because he didn't realise that hot air goes up. He's too braindead to be a double agent."

"Are you going to say that about the whole top ten?" asked Midoriya.

Kacchan grinned to himself. "Pretty much, yeah. Nejire's a fucking airhead, you've met half-and-half, that fucking anthropromorphic washing machine is pretty much only interested in his commercial tie-ins, Fumikage's semi-retired-" he counted off the members of the top ten on one gloved hand as he steered with the other.

There was an obvious name missing from that list. "And Red Riot?" Midoriya asked as they approached the bridge that linked Tartarus to the mainland, the suspension cables dark against the hazy, light-polluted sky.

"My partner?" Kacchan barked. "You're asking me to tell you if my fucking partner is the traitor."

"Is he?" Midoriya pressed as they pulled up outside Tartarus and waited for the police van to go in. The complex looked bigger than when he'd seen it on the television, windowless reinforced concrete brooding over the night-time sea, floodlights lighting up its face like a kid telling a scary story at a campfire.

Kacchan gave a growling noise in his throat. "You're lucky you're fucking immortal, you know that? He's not. I would have noticed." He glared at Midoriya, his eyes a challenge, and for the first time Midoriya felt like Kacchan was hiding something.

They idled for a moment more outside the gates of the villain prison complex as the van went in, Kacchan looking more bored and tired than anything else.

"We're not going in?" Midoriya asked.

Kacchan shook his head. "Security in there's a pain in the ass. We'll be here if he makes a break for it." He glanced at Midoriya. "Not that you'd be much use against him."

Midoriya ignored the jibe, thinking back to that year's hero ranking chart and ticking each number off in his head. Wash had been number ten, of course, and Galeforce had been five. "That leaves Countdown," he said, softly.

Kacchan pulled a face, his eyes on the gates. "That arrogant quirk-copying bastard?" He sniffed. "I've never liked him."

"You don't like lots of people," said Midoriya. "That's hardly damning."

"It's more than that, idiot." Kacchan snorted. "It's the creepy cult he calls an agency. And too many villains dying when he takes them in," he said. "It's always an escape attempt, or a suicide, of course. If All Might was still around, he'd be under investigation, but right now the Association won't fucking touch him."

"It could be accidental," Midoriya ventured.

"Bullshit," Kacchan spat. "He could pick nonlethal quirks to use if he wanted. He could pick the perfect counter to any villain."

"His real power isn't so much in having multiple quirks," said Midoriya, quoting an article on Countdown from memory. "It's how he uses them. He can pick and choose- or combine several quirks into a gestalt-"

"Shut up, I knew that," said Kacchan. He grimaced, teeth showing. "It's just like that bastard who killed All Might."

Midoriya blinked, mind going back to where he had been that night, his hero's crumpled body on the television screen, burning into his eyes. "I've seen all the footage of that fight," he said, slowly. "There was too much debris to see the techniques his opponent was using."

"But you weren't actually there," said Kacchan, a rough edge to his voice. "I was." His voice shifted, imitating someone else. "_Regeneration. Super Strength. Radiation Control._ He was fighting _exactly_ like Monoma does."

Midoriya sank back into his seat. "That's circumstantial, surely."

"Or it's not, and he's related to the Liberation Front somehow."

Midoriya nodded, a sinking sensation in his stomach. It made a disturbing amount of sense, right down to Ingenium's accusations of the Association itself being corrupt.

Kacchan nodded to himself. "I'm going to look into this. See what that creep Monoma's _really_ up to. Assuming you're right about there being an informant."

Midoriya's eyes widened. "You can't!"

"Why not?"

"You'll be in danger," Midoriya hissed. Sir Nighteye had warned him not to involve anyone, but he had thought he could trust Kacchan. "We need to move carefully on this. Please."

"Which one of us is the pro-hero," said Kacchan. "And which one of us is the idiot nerd who didn't work out he had a quirk until he was thirty? Huh?"

Midoriya hung his head, one hand up. There was no convincing Kacchan when he was like this. Never had been. "You've made your point."

Kacchan released air from his lungs in a huff. "I guess you're gonna want a ride back to Todoroki's."

Midoriya blinked, and something in the back of his mind clicked into place. He needed to talk to Sir Nighteye and warn him about Kacchan's course of action, and he needed to do it quickly. "Just drop me back in town. I can make my own way."

To his surprise, Kacchan didn't object, pulling over to let him out once they were back in the city proper. "Don't do anything fucking stupid," Kacchan said, not looking at him. "You can't afford to lose your provisional license."

Midoriya felt his mouth curve into a tired smile. "Thanks."

Midoriya breathed the cool night air, and wondered if Kacchan would ever be his friend again. They'd drifted apart, but they had something in common now, and the last few moments in the car had been not quite friendly, but getting there. He no longer felt like Kacchan was liable to blast his head off at any second.

"Whatever." The Riotmobile's engine roared, leaving Midoriya in the dust.

* * *

Dandoran district, where the mutant quirk-users lived, was run-down, mostly small apartment buildings like the one Midoriya lived in, differentiated by the adjustments the denizens had made for their abilities- the archways of front doors taller or wider than a normal human body would need. Some of the windows on ground-floor apartments were blacked out or bricked up, for those whose quirks gave them light sensitivity, and the street had clearly been excavated and repaired dozens of times. A crow-headed newspaper seller stared at him curiously as he passed, and no-one else met his eye as he walked, glancing periodically down at his phone.

He'd known the guy he was going to see for a long time, but they'd never met in person. They were one of the regular posters on the hero forum, the one who'd posted the first sighting of Ingenium. If anyone had the information he needed, it would be them. The forum's biggest hero stalker, Lovejoy.

In normal circumstances, Midoriya was sure he wouldn't have been able to get a meeting with someone like that. But in normal circumstances, his face wasn't plastered across every news outlet in Japan. A single selfie was all it had taken to get Lovejoy's attention.

_You're_ the phoenix guy? You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I want to meet, Midoriya had written, and Lovejoy hadn't needed much convincing. Before he knew it he was standing outside a nondescript first floor flat with newspaper taped to the insides of the windows. He sent another message and heard an answering vibration as the door cracked open an inch and two pale pink eyes stared out at him.

"It's me," he said. He paused. "Allmight#1fan."

"I know who you are," said Lovejoy from behind the door, and Midoriya was struck by _her_ high voice. "Come inside, before someone sees you."

"You're a girl," said Midoriya stupidly, as Lovejoy shut the door behind them.

She was short, the top of her head level with Midoriya's hip, and she looked up at him quizzically. "You were expecting some basement dwelling delinquent type guy?" she asked. "With a scraggly beard and a personal hygiene problem?"

Midoriya practically fell over himself apologising as he removed his shoes. "I mean, you're on the message board, and-"

Lovejoy shook her head, running her fingers through her short magenta hair. "Don't worry about it," she said, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "It doesn't matter anyhow. You want some tea?"

Midoriya looked around the small apartment as Lovejoy made tea. He supposed that for her it wasn't so small, but it was cluttered, clippings from newspapers and magazines covering every available surface. From the other end of the living space was the soft glow of computer monitors and indicators. A living situation he would expect, for the so-called "hero stalker". Lovejoy returned with two cups of tea, in western style crockery. It was good tea, but Midoriya's palate wasn't refined enough to tell more than that.

"So what's this information you wanted?" asked Lovejoy. "That's so important that you came all the way out here in person in the middle of the night?"

Midoriya pursed his lips. He needed the girl's help, but she didn't need to know the whole story. "I need Sir Nighteye's address," he said. "His private residence."

Lovejoy laughed.

"You have it, don't you?"

"That guy hasn't been active in over a decade." Lovejoy pinched her chin. "Are you sure that's all you want?"

"I am."

"And in return?"

"Anything you want. You could take pictures of me-" Midoriya rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed. He had a few savings left, but no idea how long those needed to last him. "I'm kinda famous now."

"I noticed," said Lovejoy, her pale pink eyes intent on him. She was less enthusiastic than he expected, her expression thoughtful. "But I'm not a tabloid reporter, you know."

"Then what do you want?"

"Moderator privileges," said Lovejoy, with a small, innocent smile.

* * *

Mirai Sasaki's home was an unassuming house on an unassuming street. Knowing his age, and the length of Sir Nighteye's hero career, Midoriya suspected that the former pro could have afforded something nicer, but a normal appearance had always been the man's motif.

He nearly missed the name sign on Sasaki's front gate, it was so faded. Two dead sunflowers towered over the fence of the small front courtyard, their flowers withered and full of seeds. They seemed sad somehow to Midoriya, but perhaps it was the light. A dim light came from within, perhaps one of the inner rooms of the house. He'd read in a profile once that Sir Nighteye only slept three hours per night.

Midoriya hesitated. What was he thinking, coming here in the middle of the night? But tomorrow would be full of press junkets, and Uraraka would probably assign someone to watching him all the time once she found out what had happened with Ingenium. He didn't have time.

"Sasaki?" he called, hoping his voice wasn't loud enough to rouse the neighbours.

To his relief, there was a reply from inside, Sasaki's voice. "Izuku?"

Mirai Sasaki opened his front door, dressed in dark trousers and a button-up shirt, the top three buttons undone. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed to talk to you," said Midoriya. "About the thing we discussed."

Wordlessly, Sasaki let him in. "You should be more careful," he said, shaking his head. "You could have been followed."

"I wasn't," Midoriya promised as he removed his shoes. "No-one knows I'm here."

Sasaki gave a sigh. "I suppose that will have to do." He gestured to the interior of the house.

The inside of the house looked at first glance to be traditionally Japanese, tatami mats on the floor, until Midoriya looked closely. Blue, red and gold was everywhere.

Sasaki's collection of All Might memorabilia far surpassed his own. First edition, limited edition, steelbox, goldbox. Things that had seen one print run before being recalled, items that Midoriya had seen auction for millions of yen peeked out shyly from inside display cases and built-in cupboards. Midoriya's eyes boggled as he looked around, but he had more important things to talk about than All Might right now.

He sat across the desk from Sasaki in Sasaki's home office, All Might looking down at him from every angle.

"I think I know who the informant is," said Midoriya. "If it's really one of the top ten, like you said."

Sasaki raised an eyebrow. "And you thought this was worth invading my privacy?"

"I didn't have another way of contacting you," said Midoriya. "I needed to warn you."

"Warn me?" said Sasaki, running long fingers over the head of an All Might figurine that stood triumphant next to his inkwell.

It was an old model, one of the first pieces of All Might merchandise ever made. It looked cheap because it had been, the grinning head made of brittle plastic, the eyes and mouth barely painted on. Of the five that still existed in the world, one belonged to the president of the American Heroes association. And it was _dusty_. Midoriya's eyes widened.

Perhaps Sasaki had been ill, or preoccupied, but no. A true collector would never leave something like this out on a desk where sunlight would fade the paintwork. Let alone let dust accumulate on it. It was sacrilege.

There was only one conclusion. Midoriya's mind went back to his first death, watching Sasaki _collect his blood_ from the memorial plinth. His real neighbour Himiko, tied up in a cupboard.

_He's not what he seems._

"It's you," he said, in shock.

Sasaki blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"You're not the real Sir Nighteye," said Midoriya, staring at the figurine, the dust on All Might's golden antenna.

Sasaki moved faster than he thought possible, and Midoriya turned just in time to feel something blunt strike the back of his head.

"A shame," Himiko's voice came to Midoriya as his vision went black. "I hoped we'd have longer than this, Izukuuu."


	16. Chapter 16

When Midoriya tasted blood on his teeth, the familiar, coppery tang of it, he was sure that he hadn't died.

No, this was something much worse. The back of his head was still throbbing where he'd been struck. An experimental flex told him he was restrained and mostly naked, bands around his wrists and neck, his back against something hard and flat. There was someone in the room with him, a woman, humming to herself as she moved. _Toga_. It had to be Toga.

He opened his eyes, his vision blurry at first as he took in his surroundings. No windows, no natural light. The walls were bare, the floor tiled, the room lit by a single halogen strip. It smelled faintly of bleach and damp tatami. Toga, the real Toga, was perched on a chair opposite him, the white button-up shirt she wore sized for Sasaki's body rather than hers, her chin cupped in her hands. Next to her was a small table, loaded with a tray of what looked like surgical tools. Under that was an icebox, pristine and white.

"Izukuu-" she smiled, too wide, drawing out the last syllable of Midoriya's name. "You're awake."

"You-" Midoriya growled.

"Yes, me," said Toga, happily, standing and spreading her arms wide. "Me, me, me." She twirled, white shirt billowing as her face shifted, her eyes briefly Sir Nighteye's yellow before the facade melted away again, dripping down her front and onto the tiled floor as she moved in close.

Midoriya surged against his restraints with a shout, but even his newfound strength seemed to do little but rattle them. Whatever he was strapped to, it was heavy. Toga laughed, her teeth white and sharp.

"Izuku, you look so good when you're struggling like that," she said, eyes raking him. "Like you'll keep going until you're really hurt, until your body can't take it anymore. Just struggling, and hurting, and _bleeding_." She ran a finger over his bare chest, tracing one of his old scars. "Your heart is beating so fast right now. Are you scared of me?"

"Let me go." Midoriya grated out.

"Hmm…" Toga raised a finger to her lips. "You know, I don't think I will."

"What do you want with me?" Midoriya demanded, straining against the cuffs again. "I'm just a regular guy. I'm not even a full hero yet."

"Oh, Izuku," Toga tilted her head to one side, and Midoriya couldn't help but see her in her disguise as his neighbour for a second. "You're selling yourself short. You're so much more than that. You're the phoenix hero. Nothing can keep you down. Lemillion's going to go on television tomorrow and call you the symbol of hope."

The symbol of hope. Midoriya didn't want it to be true. But everyone had been in despair, himself included, for a long time. Since All Might's death people had been looking at Lemillion like he was an inferior copy. Of course they would latch on to a new hero. A hero who couldn't be defeated, like All Might and Endeavor had been. A hero who couldn't die. A hero, Midoriya thought wryly, who was currently strapped to a table.

"I can't be the symbol of anything if I'm missing."

"But who says you'll be missing?" Toga leaned over him, still grinning as she plucked a scalpel from the table at his side, and traced a cold line down his chest with the tip. Midoriya gritted his teeth as blood welled up in dark red beads, and Toga popped the blade into her mouth, her face morphing into a mirror of Midoriya's. She tilted her head to one side, corners of her now green eyes creasing as she mimicked Midoriya's smile. "After all, I will be there."

Midoriya felt his guts sink. Of course Toga could use her quirk to imitate him, and the time she'd spent getting close to him as his neighbour meant that she knew him well enough to act the part. And he couldn't do anything here, wherever this was. A secret basement under Sir Nighteye's house, or a Liberation hideout nearby? Judging by what Toga had said, Midoriya didn't think he'd been unconscious long enough for her to move him far, but what did he know? She'd duped him before, been duping him all along. This could just be another layer in her game, a ploy to get him to act rashly somehow.

Toga seemed unconcerned with his silence, pulling pieces of what looked like medical equipment from one of Sir Nighteye's briefcases.

"You're type O, right?" said Toga, rifling through the icebox Midoriya had noticed earlier. It was full of blood packs, a uniform dark and syrupy red. "Shame, I don't have too many of these."

Midoriya's eyes bulged as he twisted his head to look at her, setting up a tall metal stand beside him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to need a _lot_ of blood from you today," said Toga, her smile wolfish as she mounted the pack on the stand, a clamp in place on the tube that led from it. "And I'd love to watch you die from blood loss again, Izuku," she said, and Midoriya didn't doubt her for a second as she stuck his upper arm with something sharp. "But right now I have more important things to do, okay?"

She gave his upper arm a confident tap, and Midoriya grimaced at the uncomfortable sensation of the needle sitting under his skin.

"Now the fun part," said Toga, with a grin, and suddenly she was holding the biggest needle Midoriya had ever seen, attached to a battery of clear cylinders. She stepped in close, and for a second Midoriya thought she was about to stab his other arm, but she angled the needle upwards, plunging it deftly into his neck as she loosened the clamp on the transfusion. Midoriya didn't have time to scream. He struggled, but even fighting with all of his strength did nothing to dislodge the tube in his arm or the needle in his neck, Toga calmly holding her instrument in place.

Losing this much blood so quickly felt a lot like dying, Midoriya decided, the sting in his neck where Toga had stuck him rapidly becoming an ache as the vials attached to her contraption filled one by one. He felt faint, a wave of dizziness sweeping over him, and he would have fallen if the restraints hadn't kept him in place. Toga looked almost contented as her vials filled, and the last thing Midoriya felt before he lost consciousness again was Toga's cool hand on his forehead.

"I'll be back soon, Izuku," she murmured, face fearlessly close to his as she drew her needle out. Izuku felt the feeble trickle of blood that came out pool in the hollows of his collarbones as blackness crept into the periphery of his vision.

It couldn't end like this. It couldn't.

Could it?

Midoriya woke again to an empty room, the catheter still lodged in his arm, the halogen strip above him plinking on and off. He felt weak, his arms and head heavy, like the straps were the only thing holding him up. This was no good. He couldn't fight like this. He couldn't do anything like this. He needed to get out, before Toga got back. Ingenium had been the only person who'd been even close to knowing the truth about Sir Nighteye, and thanks to Midoriya he was in Tartarus right now.

Midoriya cursed under his breath, his mind racing and his mouth dry. He needed help, but he had no way of calling for it. Toga had taken his phone along with the rest of his clothes, and as far as anyone on the outside knew, she was Midoriya now. There was no-one who would come looking for him. But she couldn't have stashed him far from Sir Nighteye's house, not in the time she'd had. Collecting his thoughts, Midoriya took a second, more careful look at his surroundings. Two doors, reinforced by the looks of them. Perhaps this was a panic room of some sort. No windows. Underground, perhaps? He looked up, squinting past the harsh light of the halogen bulb, and sure enough there was an air vent in the ceiling, a fan whirring behind it. If he was lucky, that led to the surface. If he was unlucky, the interior of some sort of compound.

"Hello?" Midoriya called. There was silence. He tried again, louder this time. "Can anyone hear me? Hello?"

Worst case, he was in some sort of Liberation Front compound, and someone would come to shut him up. The best case?

"Ah," the voice that came through the vents was familiar, but not. "You must be her new prisoner, the man with the rekindle quirk." Sir Nighteye's voice was hoarser and more tired than Midoriya remembered it. But then, he'd never really heard Sir Nighteye's voice, had he? "She's been talking about you."

"Sasaki?" Midoriya asked.

The man's voice was wry. "The very same."

"How can I tell it's really you?"

"You can't," said Sasaki. "But if you'd rather sit in silence, I'm quite used to that, I assure you."

Midoriya swallowed, his mind whirling. Of course, Toga needed a supply of blood in order to imitate a person. That was why she hadn't killed his neighbour, and why she had kept Sasaki around. "How long have you been down here?"

Sasaki's laughter was a dry thing, echoing through the vent, but Midoriya recognised its undertones. It might as well have been a scream of despair. What had Melissa said? That Sir Nighteye had just changed one day, and fallen out with Lemillion? Had that been the real Sir Nighteye, or had Toga already taken over his seeming?

Midoriya closed his eyes, squaring his jaw. "I'm going to get you out of here."

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

"I'll think of something," Midoriya promised. "I'm a hero."

"There's no way out," said Sasaki, voice flat.

"You seem pretty sure of that," said Midoriya.

There was a pause. "I built this place, originally." said Sasaki. "It's a panic room. The doors are reinforced steel and concrete. And given Toga's strapped you down to the tickle machine and you've not burst free, I'm guessing you're not packing a power type quirk up your sleeve, either."

"Not exactly," Midoriya admitted, biting his cheek. "Isn't there some kind of failsafe on the doors? To stop you locking yourself in?"

"There was," said Sasaki. "Until our mutual friend Himiko Toga started using it as a dungeon."

Midoriya exhaled through his nose. If he could just kill himself, he'd be free of his restraints. Melissa had said that his flames had atomised the material that he had touched, re-using them as components for his body. Maybe he could do that to the door as well. "I'll get us out of here," he said, more to reassure himself than anything. From the other side of the wall, Sasaki made no reply.

Midoriya had never killed himself, at least, not on purpose. What had happened in the power plant was technically a suicide, he supposed, but it had been more like standing there and waiting for the explosion to do the work. It wasn't the same as doing it with his own hands. Would his quirk even work if he committed suicide? He honestly wasn't sure, but right now his only alternative looked like waiting for Toga to come back.

And there weren't exactly many options for him, either. He could cut off his airway by straining against his neck restraint, but as soon as he fell unconscious he would start breathing again. He needed to damage himself.

He had heard stories about people biting off their own tongues, but he'd never been sure if that was a real thing or just something that happened in movies. There had been a girl a few years back who had died that way, but she'd been some sort of mutant. Midoriya wasn't even sure if he _could_ bite his own tongue off.

A little wriggling convinced him that the catheter in his arm was wedged too securely for him to tear it free while he was strapped down like this. Twisting his head, he could bring his lips to the tube, the mostly empty bloodbag hanging vacant at the other end of it. If he could use it to pull the stand to him, maybe he could find a jagged edge on it that he could use to open a vein.

Bracing himself for the pain, Midoriya took the tube between his teeth and wrenched it from his arm. Fresh blood glistened at the site, thin and red, and Midoriya gripped the tube tightly in his teeth as a wave of nausea came over him, bile rising in his throat. He steadied himself, slowing his breathing. Now he just needed to pull the stand over, and catch it. He gave the tube a tentative tug, careful not to dismount the bloodpack, and it swayed, listing towards him before it rocked back again, secure on its wheeled base. He tugged again, pulling it further, and it toppled. He brought his knees up to catch it, as far as he could with his ankles in shackles, but the stand was too far forward.

_No!_ Midoriya's heart sank as the stand clattered uselessly to the floor, leaving him with a plastic catheter in his mouth and nothing else. The tip wasn't enough- he'd only be able to puncture the tops of his shoulders with it in his mouth like this, and even then it wasn't particularly sharp. He stared down at the fallen stand, the hooks to hold bags pointed upwards, and paused.

"Sasaki," he called. "You said I was on the tickle machine, right?"

There was a pause. "I can only assume that's what Toga would use to restrain you."

Midoriya nodded. "Does it tip?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Is it attached to a wall?" Midoriya expanded.

"It wasn't," said Sasaki, his tone curious. "Though if you're planning on using it to crush yourself and rekindle, I'm afraid it's not heavy enough."

Midoriya stared down at the hooks on the stand on the floor in front of him. "It's okay," he said, quietly. "I don't need it to crush me."

The machine seemed to take forever to fall, Midoriya rocking it back and forth with his limited mobility until finally it overbalanced. His death was necessary, he told himself, as the ground loomed, sickening and inevitable. One spike pierced his chest, and another just below his ribs, puncturing the skin and sliding through flesh. Midoriya screamed.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Contains suicide, don't try this at home, kids**

* * *

It took over three hours for Midoriya to die.

The stand had punctured his chest with the fall, but not deeply enough. Instead it sat wetly between his ribs, the pain shooting through him every time he took a breath. The one in his stomach he couldn't even see, but it hurt too, a throbbing, ebbing kind of pain that threatened to make him pass out all over again if he breathed in too deep. He was bleeding out from three places, the two hooks and his arm where the catheter had been, a wet trickle pulsing out over the spikes and dripping onto the floor, but that was slowing, his efficient body working against him. Midoriya wriggled against the spikes to force them deeper, biting back an involuntary cry as his vision went white with pain.

"Did you stop to consider," said Sasaki, from beyond the wall. "That Toga might have put you in quirk-cancelling cuffs?"

Midoriya grimaced. Sasaki was right. He hadn't considered for a moment that Toga might have done something to stop his quirk from working. But she hadn't exactly made it easy for him to kill himself either. He had to hope that wasn't the case. "Even if she has, this is still my best shot," he said. He couldn't afford to have Toga find him like this. She'd chain him down to something more secure, and then he'd be stuck.

"Someone could rescue you," said Sasaki.

"Like they rescued you?" Midoriya snarled back, and immediately felt awful about it. He didn't know how long Sasaki had been waiting for just that. "I'm sorry," he added, blood in the back of his throat, liquid in the base of his lungs, but not quite enough to drown him. "I'm just- it hurts a lot right now."

"No. You're right." Sasaki's voice was low. "She avoided detection for years, working the association from the inside. Even if capturing you came sooner than she planned, there's no way she would slip up now."

Midoriya squeezed his eyes shut, biting his cheek, but it did nothing to dull the pain of his injuries, the pain blaring out in his mind like a broken alarm. _Wake up, Deku. You're dying. _"It doesn't matter," he said, hearing his own voice waver. "I'm going to get us out of here."

Unless the person talking to him through the wall wasn't the real Sir Nighteye at all. Unless it was another of Toga's tricks. Midoriya breathed in, and regretted it instantly as the spikes in his stomach and chest shifted. He gritted his teeth, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "I need to know that I can trust you, Sasaki."

"I can't prove I'm not Toga."

"I think you can." Every word Midoriya squeezed out was pain. "There was something I saw... upstairs. What's your most expensive piece of All Might merchandise?"

Sasaki's answer was quick. "The first All Might figurine ever made, of course. From the Delaware toy factory. The plastic ages in sunlight, so there aren't that many around anymore. When I first met him I asked him to sign it for me. He gave me a newer doll instead. Said I should have his signature on something that would last." There was a breath of quiet. "But I could have told Toga that."

"You didn't." Midoriya closed his eyes, not sure if he should tell Sasaki how he was sure that Toga didn't know. Because the figurine was currently out on a desk, collecting dust. But hadn't Sasaki suffered enough? He changed the subject instead."What does she want with me?"

"Toga?" Sasaki's tone was dark. "You're a perfect plaything for her. Someone she can kill over and over."

"I seem to be doing a good enough job of that," said Midoriya, wishing he could just hurry up and die already, but his body seemed to resist the idea, the injury on his arm already clotting. He could feel his teeth start to chatter as he went into shock, but there was no sign of the flame taking him as it had before.

If this didn't work, Midoriya decided, he had only himself to blame.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, his damaged body fighting to keep him alive as he lost more and more blood, as the stuff in his guts seeped into the rest of his insides, his breathing harder and harder as his lungs filled further. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to think of anything aside from his body, the present moment. He kept telling himself a few more breaths and the flame would come, his quirk would come, the quirk that had saved him from an ignominious death at the hands of a street thug. He would save Sir Nighteye. He would save everyone. He had to. Tears formed in his eyes, running freely down his cheeks, and he thought of All Might, grinning face staring down from the walls of his tiny apartment, from every cupboard in Sasaki's home. All Might had been only one man, in the end, with one life, and one death. Who knew how many tries Midoriya would get. How many times he would have to die to achieve even one percent of what All Might had.

"I'm cold," Midoriya, tried to say, but his lips wouldn't move.

The flame danced at his fingertips and moved upwards, red and gold. It flooded through his lungs, wrapped around him like wings.

* * *

Midoriya opened his eyes to find himself crouched in a crater on the floor, only fragments of the tickle machine remaining. Foam from a fire suppression system covered the rest of the room, and it sizzled as it reached the edge of Midoriya's crater. Taking a deep breath, his lungs miraculously and newly painless, Midoriya found the door that lead to the second room in the basement, where Sasaki was imprisoned.

Sasaki was restrained with chains rather than strapped down as Midoriya had been, and he looked thinner than Toga's version of him had been, his cheeks gaunt. His skin was dirty, flecked with dried blood, and what Midoriya could see of him was riddled with scars, track marks where Toga had taken blood and replaced it, and other marks that looked more deliberate. His hair had grown out, and fell matted to the tops of his shoulders. He stood unsteadily when he saw Midoriya, holding out his chained wrists.

Midoriya fetched a hacksaw from Toga's table of torture implements and set about sawing through the chains. Sasaki's hands shook a little as Midoriya worked the saw, and for a second Midoriya wished that he really did have a power quirk, that he could just snap Sasaki's restraints with his hands and carry him to safety

"There's something I've been wondering. About Toga," said Midoriya, his voice low as he worked. "She's been embedded in the association for a long time. And she's got nothing against killing. Why hasn't she killed more heroes?"

Sasaki stared down at Midoriya, his expression thoughtful. "You're asking the wrong question. It's more than that. An individual hero can die, yes, but the ideal of heroism lives on. It's not enough to kill the heroes. The public would still support the hero system, and the Liberation Front has power, but it doesn't have the numbers to impose its ideals on the population." Sasaki paused, his lips a thin line. "Mirio was a good choice," he said, half to himself. _A good choice for what?_ Midoriya wondered, but stayed silent, intent on freeing Sasaki quickly.

"He's kept them at bay, stopped them from achieving overwhelming victory," Sasaki continued, a grim smile gracing his lips. "And so what must be destroyed to achieve the front's aim is the _ideal_ of heroes."

Midoriya nodded, remembering the questions the examiner had asked him in his license exam. "The Association seemed worried about letting in people aligned with them."

"It wasn't enough to kill All Might. Death doesn't kill a symbol. Can't kill an ideal. All Might is still here, in our hearts, in our paradigm of the world."

"Then what's their plan?" Midoriya frowned. "How do you kill a symbol?"

Sasaki's voice was hollow. "You pervert them. You have them betray everything they stood for. You make it so that no-one can stand to look at their face." He looked up at the ceiling, the gauntness of his face and the sharpness of his collarbones made even more apparent. "You have them fail, over and over."

_Lemillion is going to announce that you are the symbol of hope._ Midoriya felt cold as he remembered Toga's words. She was going to use him- use his face. The last of Sasaki's chains came apart in his hands, and he let them drop to the floor.

"We need to find Toga. Now."

"That's easier said than done," said Sasaki, gingerly rubbing the sores where his shackles had been. "We still don't have a way to get through the panic room door."

"Ah, that." Midoriya pressed his fingertips together. "Leave that to me."

His second suicide was easier than the first, a case of slashing his wrists with one of the blades from the torture table as Sasaki stood back. Midoriya tried not to think about how much steel and concrete he was about to absorb as the red-gold flames consumed him again, fire suppressant foam hissing against his shoulders. The space where the door had been smouldered, and Midoriya checked his body for lingering flames before he stepped through.

* * *

Raiding Sasaki's wardrobe yielded ill-fitting clothes for both of them. Sasaki was weaker than Midoriya had thought, his steps staggering, his eyes blinking at the daylight that filtered through the house. It was later than Midoriya had assumed, the sun already low in the sky. How long had he been down there, he wondered, rising panic in his gut. He'd been unconscious at least twice. If Toga returned, would he be able to fight her and protect Sasaki?

He went to the phone he'd seen on the desk in Sasaki's study, but his hand froze as he reached for the handset. Who could he call? Certainly not the police- he'd be asking them to arrest _him_. And of all the heroes who knew about the Toga situation, he only had one number committed to memory. Not knowing quite what he would say, Midoriya tapped in Todoroki's personal number. His answer was a busy tone, and he swore under his breath as he put the handset down. He couldn't afford to wait around in the hopes of Todoroki picking up.

There was the sound of a television from the other room, a studio audience laughing. And familiar voice, Minoru Mineta.

Midoriya stepped into the room to see Sasaki on his knees in front of his television set. "We need to go," he said, but Sasaki turned and raised a finger to his lips.

Midoriya felt a chill as he caught sight of Mineta's guest, seated across from the short man. It was someone whose face he'd seen nearly every day as he worked at the Can't Stop Sparkling agency. Aoyama's sidekick, Jazzler.

"I worked with him for several years. Of course, everyone at the agency knew that there was something special about him. Knew he was wasted on the merchandising team." Jazzler laughed.

"And what about the rumours regarding his purported relationship with the number two hero, Uravity?" Mineta asked, thumb on his bobbly goatee as he leaned in.

The display behind the two of them shifted to a photograph of Midoriya in street clothes, seated at a table in a cafe across from none other than Uraraka. A single piece of cake sat on a plate between them.

"Well," said Jazzler with a grin. "I certainly wouldn't blame him-"

"That's her," said Midoriya, stupidly as Jazzler prattled on. "That's Toga." The thought of Toga wearing his face as she had cake with Uraraka unsettled him.

Sasaki nodded grimly. "They said you're due to do a live interview on Uravity's talk show tonight."


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Sorry Iceman, this week's another cliffhanger I'm afraid...**

* * *

Midoriya drove, brain working overtime. They'd taken Sasaki's car, the keys mercifully left behind in his office. What if Toga had taken another face already, a member of the top ten, perhaps? He would never find her then, and he would be back at square one, looking for the impostor in the ranks. Streets raced by in a blur, the evening rush hour not yet jamming the highways with red brake lights and exhaust fumes. Neat suburban houses turned into tower blocks without gardens, turned into gleaming skyscrapers, images of heroes projected on their sides. There was Wash's inanely grinning face, twenty feet tall on an advert for a deodorising spray, Countdown reclining over a velvet chaise lounge, half a dozen designer watches strapped to each forearm.

It was simultaneously too fast and too slow, every second another second that his adversary could use to her advantage, but… he still didn't have a plan. Toga could disable him and claim that he was the impostor, and there was nothing he could say to the contrary. And now thanks to him Kacchan was probably across the country confronting Countdown, and the only person who could vouch that he was the real Midoriya was Sasaki, who had spent years in Toga's torture basement.

He'd always dreamed of being a hero, but he'd never dreamed it would feel like this. Was this really how it felt? Like every ticking second was another second that people were in danger? Like he had to leap forward, and do something, anything, regardless of if he had a plan, regardless of his odds of success. Was that what he had been dreaming of, all these years? He'd always been willing. His feet had always moved without thinking, putting his body between others and danger, with no thought of whether he would succeed or fail. But now, more was at stake. Throwing himself into the situation held no danger for him personally. Only others would bear that consequence, if he failed, or worse, if his flames consumed them. He needed to do more than throw himself at the problem.

They turned onto a sliproad out onto the highway towards the television studio where Uraraka's show was filmed, a costumed Red Riot grinning down from a billboard that advertised a new sort of angle grinder. Heroes saturated the world, towered over it. Was Midoriya really fit to stand among them?

The telltale spiral trail of Nejire chan's quirk hung in the sky above them as they took the turning for the TV studio. The signs for Uravity's filming were clear, pasted over a weathered sign pointed the way to the soundstage for the cancelled movie Dark Shadow. The security guards raised the barriers for them without question, though whether this was because they recognised Midoriya or security was simply lax, Midoriya wasn't sure.

In the carpark, Midoriya looked over at Sasaki, who was slumped back in the passenger seat, his greying hair falling over his gaunt face. He looked exhausted. He'd struggled to walk to the car. There was no way that he'd be any help in a fight.

"I can't take you with me," said Midoriya.

Sasaki's yellow eyes gleamed. "I can still help you." He inclined his head, just slightly, and Midoriya was briefly struck by how perfectly Toga had imitated his mannerisms. He paused, seeming to consider something. "Give me your hand," he said, and Midoriya did.

Sasaki's hand was bony, his skin cool and dry against Midoriya's palm. His eyes glowed softly as he used his quirk, clockwork spinning behind them, and Midoriya found himself holding his breath. There had never been too much information on exactly how Sir Nighteye's quirk had worked, though the hero forums had been rife with speculation.

"Don't let anyone know she's there until you have eyes on her," Sasaki said, his eyes turning back to yellow as he released Midoriya's hand. "If she gets wind of you hunting her, we lose any chance of capturing her. And we_ must_ capture her, whatever the cost." He turned from Midoriya, his gaze on the dashboard of the sedan, his focus somewhere in the middle distance. "Go ahead, I'll follow."

"But your body-" said Midoriya.

"You are the last person who should be lecturing anyone on minding their own wellbeing," said Sasaki, sharply. "Now, go!"

* * *

The studio looked like a normal industrial building from the outside, like a factory or a warehouse, the company logo emblazoned on the front wall. It was a far cry from Uraraka's agency, with its gleaming, space-age exterior. He pushed through the front door and was met with what looked to his inexperienced eyes like chaos, people with headsets hurrying back and forth.

"There you are!" A production assistant charged up to Midoriya, clipboard under one arm. "You were due in makeup ten minutes ago." Midoriya froze, the shards of his plan falling apart in his mind. If Toga was missing in action, he didn't have a way of finding her. And if she found that he was here, it would be simple for her to turn into someone else and vanish into the crowds. He needed to find her quickly.

"Where was I supposed to be?" he asked. He put a little steel into his voice. "Tell me."

The assistant, a young man who dressed like a high-schooler, in t-shirt, jeans and Galeforce sneakers, froze under Midoriya's gaze. "The dressing rooms, but-"

"Then take me there," said Midoriya, interrupting him. It wasn't exactly heroic behaviour, but it was his best bet for catching Toga.

The assistant hesitated a second before he nodded, probably weighing his chances of getting in trouble for obeying versus disobeying Midoriya, but he took Midoriya's arm and hustled him through the complex towards the dressing rooms, a confusing warren of temporary corridors and doors marked _staff only_.

Midoriya slowed as he heard his own voice, grabbing the assistant's arm to stop him. His mirror image, Toga, was in the dressing room ahead, talking to Todoroki, who was in his showy Permafrost outfit, glittering white cape and all. Midoriya felt woozy as he watched himself tilt his head sympathetically, hand on Todoroki's shoulder.

"Ensetsu's a sensible kid," Not-Midoriya was saying. "You should talk to him."

"I know-" Todoroki's voice was tired. "But every time I do it makes it worse- we end up at each other's throats."

Midoriya grabbed the assistant by his collar, dragging him out of sight through a nearby doorway. He lowered his voice to speak. "Get away from here," he hissed, and the guy had enough sense not to question him.

Midoriya stepped from the alcove and headed to the dressing room, hoping he could get there before Toga noticed him.

But not-Midoriya was staring at him as he reached the door, smile wide and toothy, green eyes glittering. Midoriya watched with horror as Todoroki turned from Toga, following her gaze.

"Midoriya-?" Todoroki's mismatched eyes widened with confusion.

Midoriya yelled, leaping forward, time seeming to slow, his quirk-augmented body propelled as fast as it could go. But his mirror was as fast as him, and closer to Todoroki. Red bloomed on Todoroki's chest as the tip of her knife jutted out from his sternum.

Todoroki gave a noise like air being expelled from his lungs, his breath frost in the air as he collapsed forward. Midoriya caught him by the shoulders, reaching him before he hit the floor.

Not-Midoriya grinned as she licked Todoroki's blood from her knife, twirling it with her thick, scarred fingers. "Izukuu," she crooned, in Midoriya's own voice. "You escaped already? I'm going to have to lock you up better this time. Maybe cut off your arms." She tilted her head as she gestured with the knife, green eyes creasing at the corners.

Midoriya cradled Todoroki's body in his arms. There was blood, too much blood. He ripped fabric from his shirt to try and staunch it, but his hands were coated in it. Todoroki was still breathing, but barely. "Todoroki," Midoriya breathed. "No-" If only Kacchan were here, or Ensetsu, or anyone who could have cauterised the wound. His flames were useless here.

"You could have prevented this, Izuku," said Toga, calmly, as Midoriya pressed his slippery hands to Todoroki's chest, the blood growing colder, the pulse weaker. "If you'd just stayed in the basement where I put you-"

Midoriya put Todoroki down gently, his eyes on the chest wound, which had started to frost over, the flow of blood ebbing as it crystallised. "No," he said, a gruff edge to his voice. His hands were shaking, adrenaline keening through his body. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare put this on anyone but you, Himiko. You made a choice. Everyone you hurt, everyone you killed, that was your choice. You could have given yourself over to the authorities at any point."

"Spoken like a true hero," smiled Toga. "I suppose that's your plan? Turn me over to the authorities?"

Midoriya tried to blot out the shallow, wet sound of Todoroki's breath as he faced down his grinning doppelganger. What would All Might do? Did he have the luxury of doing what All Might would have done? Or did he need to do, in Ingenium's words, _what was necessary_? Slowly, he nodded. "Your game's up," he said.

Toga gave a bark of laughter. "Is it?" she asked. "Is it really a choice? To live your whole life without expressing your quirk, or be branded a villain? To go directly to Tartarus, or keep trying to change the world?" On the wall behind her, the screen silently showed the set of Uravity's talk show, the audience applauding as the opening graphics displayed, Uravity stepping out onto the stage.

"You do the right thing," said Midoriya, squaring his jaw.

"I couldn't have put it better myself," said Toga, with a small smile, her gaze flickering to something beyond Midoriya, her brow wrinkling fractionally. She tossed him the knife she'd used to stab Todoroki. Midoriya caught the knife by the handle, slick and bloody in his hands.

"Oh, thank goodness, Lemillion," said Toga quickly, and Midoriya spun to look behind him. "It's Toga. She's hurt Todoroki."

Lemillion was standing in the doorway to the dressing room, his mouth a grim line. He looked like he'd just come from makeup, his red cape billowing behind him. "Sir said you'd be here," he said, glancing down at Midoriya.

Midoriya gritted his teeth. He was holding the knife used to stab Todoroki, and there was a blood on his shirt and hands. It wasn't a great look, he had to admit.

But Lemillion wasn't looking at him. Lemillion's gaze was locked on Toga.

"Who won our sparring match, Midoriya?" he asked, a tension in his whole body, resonating through his voice.

Toga's expression shifted to worry, her green eyes wide. "Toga is _right here_, we don't have time for games."

"Who won our sparring match?" Lemillion repeated, slowly.

Midoriya held his breath as Toga shook her head. "You did," she said.

Lemillion moved fast, golden lightning crackling over his body as he moved towards Toga, fist clenched. Midoriya watched as if in slow motion as Lemillion struck, Toga's neck snapping with the force of the blow, an instantaneous kill.

And then the flames ignited. It was the first time Midoriya hadn't been within them, and their brightness surprised him, forcing him to squint as Lemillion staggered back from them, clutching the space where his arm had been.

His arm. Midoriya felt sick. Lemillion's arm was missing, a charred stump just below the shoulder. That must have been everything that was corporeal at the moment of impact.

Toga laughed, rising off-kilter from her crouch within the flames, her voice still Midoriya's but more manic, her grin wider and toothier, no longer imitating his speech patterns. "Wow, you really tried to kill me, didn't you, mr number one hero. Guess I should return the favour."


End file.
